Amid reports here that the Jewish Agency and HIAS have reached on understanding on the vexed problem of the “noshrim” (dropouts), Leon Dulzin, Jewish Agency Executive chairman, this week published a warmly laudatory cable he had sent to HIAS president Edwin Shapiro. “I look forward,” Dulzin wrote, “to even closer collaboration between us” (on the Soviet Jewry issue).
The text of Dulzin’s cable read: “During the recent Jewish Agency Assembly in Jerusalem my colleagues and I had many discussions with Mr. Edwin Shapiro, president, and Mr. Gaynor Jacobson, executive vice president of the HIAS on how to deal with critical problems in relation to Soviet Jewry.
“In confronting the situation of Soviet Jewry today, the resolution adopted by the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF) at the last General Assembly of 1979 in Montreal that we should do everything possible to bring out the maximum number of Jews from the Soviet Union and that the maximum number should go to Israel, is the basis of our common endeavors.
“In light of the current challenge, common efforts are being undertaken by HIAS, Joint Distribution Committee, CJF and the Jewish Agency. Those common efforts will produce positive results. The history of HIAS in the work of Jewish rescue is a brilliant chapter in contemporary Jewish history. Our mutual concern is saving Jews, and the State of Israel represents the essence of that historic purpose. I look forward to even closer collaboration between us in working toward this common objective.”
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