A budget of $5,005,000 for 1949 was approved ### today at the 64th annual convention of the HIAS, attended by delegates of 2,000 fraternal religious and labor organizations.
The convention adopted a resolution extending congratulations to Israel on the establishment of a government through an “election conducted with the highest ideals democracy” end pledged the organization’s “cooperation to assist uprooted and class Jaws who desire to immigrate to the new homeland.”
Other resolutions adopted “by the convention appealed for revision of the present Displaced Persons Act of l948 to “extend the eligibility date from Dec. 22, 1945, to Jan. l,l949, to permit 400,000 DP’s to enter the U.S.”, approved recent ##tion taken by the HIAS board of directors to merge with the Joint Distribution Committee “in its migration work overseas, but to coordinate rather than merge its activities with the United Service for New American”; and lauded, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, American military authorizes in Germany, the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service ## the efficient, generous end sympathetic help they are according” displaced per## and other immigrants.
Samuel A. Telsey, HIAS president, addressing the convention delegates, called ## “redoubled assistance to the Jews in Eastern Europe and in North African and other ##slam countries who live under intolerable discriminatory legislation and under conditions that have become extremely dangerous due to inflamed political passions.”
“During 1948,” Telsey reported, “we aided the emigration of over 23,000 displaced persons end others from Europe; we afforded immigrants 37,195 nights of shelter, and we served them over 162,000 meals in our shelter.”
Isaac L. Asofsky, HIAS executive director, reviewing the organization’s activities last year, noted that “despite restrictions HIAS was able to effect the emigration of 23,351 Jews from European countries, a goodly number of them from behind be so called Iron Curtain they went to many countries throughout the world Israel, be united States, Canada, South and Central America, Australia and other lands,” ##e added.
“Despite the general trend in these countries to encourage highly selective immigration, and despite the fact that the governments of certain of these countries limited immigration to those whose ethnical origin was the same as the white population in those lands, a total of l4,223 Jewish immigrants arrived in the 21 Latin American countries in 1948, of whom more than 60 percent were serviced by HIAS,” Asofsky stated.
A message to the convention from Israeli Ambassador Eliahu Elath said that the “helping hand which HIAS has stretched out to those who were forcefully uprooted from their surroundings or who voluntarily wanted to start life afresh, has saved the lives of untold thousands of our brethren and has rescued even greater number from Suffering and despair, Many who are now citizens of Israel will be forever grateful. HIAS for having helped them at one stage or another on the tedious route to their own land,” the message said.
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