The next three months are expected to be “an intensely critical period” for Algerian Jewish refugees in France, according to a report made last night by Dr. William Haber, president of the American ORT Federation, to his organization’s executive committee, meeting at Hotel Commodore.
“The vast majority of the 110,000 Jews who left Algeria in last year’s human flash flood, did so between May and July,” Dr. Haber noted. “Government aid, which is limited to one year, will begin to terminate for tens of thousands in the coming months, with the prospect that the social and relief services of the community may well be inundated by the sheer massiveness of the human needs to be met.
“The big need after housing is jobs, and this will reach an acute stage when government assistance to the refugees comes to an end,” Dr. Haber warned. “France’s booming economy needs workers and the government is making a special effort to place refugees, but for tens of thousands of former shopkeepers, salesmen and similar categories, the acquisition of suitable skills is the essential prerequisite to employment.”
The committee approved an upward revision of its budgetary allocation to the French ORT vocational training programs to help in coping with the anticipated additional thousands of applicants who are expected to turn to the trade schools and other ORT facilities for job instruction. American ORT Federation receives funds in part from the Joint Distribution Committee, out of United Jewish Appeal campaign income, and in part from its membership activities.
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