An appeal to French Jews to aid all refugees, regardless of creed or origin, was issued today by the Israelite Consistory in its organ, Univers Israelite. Expressing sympathy with refugees from the French northern and eastern provinces, as well as those from Belgium and Luxemburg, the appeal states:
“Israel, which has many times before been submitted to the trial of evil, has deep sympathy with all human beings brutally uprooted and driven away from their native soil. Although for French Jewry these sufferings are a matter of the distant past, we have seen our coreligionists in eastern and central Europe endure them only recently and we understand the desolation which could befall the souls of hundreds of thousands of refugees had they not been comforted with quick aid.
“France is by tradition a country of asylum. From the beginning of the catastrophe generous initiative has been taken and work done in order to alleviate the plight of the unfortunates who left their homes and positions and many of whom even lost on the road the meager luggage which they took along in their hurried exodus. Their children are hungry; the old people and sick people have no blankets.
“Everybody must do his duty to help and assist, to facilitate their provisional establishment on this soil. Every one of us must remember his people facing danger at the front and consider that in helping the refugees he helps to preserve the human itarian values for which the others give their lives on the battlefield.
“French Jewry, to whose generosity no appeal was ever made in vain, will wholeheartedly fulfill its duty of hospitality and solidarity towards all the victims of the invasion.”
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