Chief Rabbi ### Nahou## of Egypt has resigned, presumably in protest against the Egyptian Government’s expulsion of Jews from Egypt A.L. Easterman, political director of the World Jewish Congress declared at a press conference here today.
Mr. Easterman said that reports from Egypt add up to the fact that Nasser’s government contemplates, and is in considerable measure executing, a plan to eliminate Jews from Egyptian life–a Jewry which has always proved itself loyal, law-abiding and peaceful.
Immediately affected by the expulsion order, he revealed, are 25,000 of the country’s 50,000 Jews. This group consists of 14,000 stateless Jews, 6,000 Jews of British and French nationality and 5,000 Jews of Egyptian nationality. The Egyptian Government has placed the impossible burden on these people of proving that they are “not in sympathy with Israel and Zionism” if they wish to escape deportation, Mr. Easterman said.
The British Government, meanwhile, charged that the Egyptian expulsions violate the Geneva convention of 1949 protecting non-combatants. France yesterday voiced similar charges in reference to the banishment of Egyptian Jews.
NASSER HOLDING ONE MEMBER OF EACH JEWISH FAMILY AS HOSTAGE
The entire London press devoted considerable space today to reports from Egypt of action against the Jews. A dispatch from Port Said said that Nasser is holding hundreds of Jewish men, women and children–one member of every Jewish family in Port Said–as hostages. They were dragged from their beds in a night of terror and driven off in trucks, the report said. The arrests were made November 1, before the Anglo-French landings at Port Said.
Another dispatch from that city revealed that Jews have begun fleeing from Port Said, in each case leaving their family hostages behind. Yesterday Jewish refugees, granted stateless status by France, were taken aboard the French hospital ship “La Marseilles” bound for southern France. Jews made up 160 of the 180-odd refugees on the ship. Those who remain of Port Said’s 300 Jewish families fear that the British and French may pull out before they can flee.
Another report, from a correspondent who just returned from Egypt, revealed that Egypt is taking over all Jewish property. “Many large Jewish businesses have already opened under Egyptian management. The largest department store in Cairo owned by Circurel, father-in-law of Pierre Mendes-France, former Premier of France has been seized, the reporter said.
Patients in the Jewish Hospital of Cairo have been turned out and the Egyptian military have taken over the establishment. After Egyptian Air Force headquarters was wrecked by British bombing, the correspondent wrote, Air Force staff was moved into the Metropolitan Hotel and all Jews living within 200 yards were given two hours to quit their homes or be fined six pounds for every hour they remained thereafter.
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