Morris Ashkanasy, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, here for a brief visit, today told a meeting of officers of United HIAS Service, the Jewish international migration agency, that the Australian Government shows no discrimination against immigrants of the Jewish faith.
Mr. Ashkanasy, a leading attorney of Melbourne, explained to the meeting, held in the Hotel Commodore, that the question, “Are you Jewish?” which appeared on applications for Australian immigration permits for years following the start of World War II, until recently, was not discriminatory in intent. He said that the government’s explanation for this pointed question was that it was intended to give immigration priorities to victims of Hitlerism and Old World oppression. “Our surveys proved that this was actually the case and that many of the some 30,000 Jews who found homes in Australia since the beginning of World War II received priorities if they answered the question affirmatively,” he said.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
