Eisenhower Asked to Intercede Against Egyptian Persecution of Jews

President Eisenhower was asked to intercede against Egyptian persecution of Jews and to consider an emergency immigration measure to admit some Egyptian Jewish refugees in a resolution adopted last night at a mass meeting here sponsored by the Jewish Community Council.

The meeting was addressed by Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin of Maryland, Sen- Joseph C. O’Mahoney, Wyoming Democrat, the Re. Dr. Russell H. Stafford, president of the Hartford Theological Seminary, Victor G. Reuther. of the United Automobile Workers, AFL-CIO, and Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner, past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Gov. McKeldin displayed actual photostatic copies of Egyptian orders deporting Jews. He said: “It is not without significance that much of this anti-Jewish program in Egypt is being directed by former Nazis and that there is today an axis between dictator Nasser and the Soviet Union with its history of Stalin’s and Khrushchev’s anti-Semitism.”

Sen. O’Mahoney said the United States Government “should have no hesitation in announcing in simple words its condemnation of the inhuman order of expulsion announced by dictator Nasser against the Jewish inhabitants of Egypt.” He culled attention to “the difference between the Arab refugees from Palestine and the Jews who have now been expelled from Egypt.” He said the Arabs “left voluntarily–the Jew was driven out. The Government of Israel has announced its willingness to reimburse the Arab refugees, but the Government of Egypt confiscates without reimbursement the property of its Jewish victims.”

Rev. Stafford called Nasser “a cardboard Hitler,” “stating that in Egypt’s own interest, someone must call a halt to her dictator before flaming ruin ensues.” He said that if Arab hatred of Israel were not “a matter of policy, the distressing Arab refugee problem would long since have been solved.”