European Conference Aids North African Refugees with $750, 000

More than $750, 000 to aid North African Jewish refugees in France was pledged today to the recently formed Emergency Aid Fund of the Standing Conference on European Jewish Community Services, at the organization’s third annual assembly here.

The funds, of which more than $300, 000 has already been raised, were pledged by Jewish leaders from 11 European countries. The money will be used to supplement the aid given to the newcomers by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the French Government in efforts to absorb some 180, 000 North African refugees now in France. The funds were raised after a warning yesterday by Charles H. Jordan, JDC director general for overseas operations, who said that, even with French Government aid, there would be need for help to the refugees “for a sustained period. “

Claude Kelman, vice president of the Fonds Social Juif Unifie, the central French Jewish welfare agency, and Dr. A. Chouraki, president of the Oran Consistory in Algeria, told the assembly that the influx from North Africa had created “a new geography” of France with some Jewish populations quadrupling in size. They cited as a “striking example” the situation in Marseille whose Jewish population has rocketed from 12, 000 to more than 60, 000.

The complex of new needs created for the Joint Distribution Committee by the mass movement of Jews in recent months, was stressed in reports presented to the JDC’s 16th annual Country Directors Conference, simultaneously in session here. In a summary statement, Moses A. Leavitt, of New York, JDC executive vice-chairman, pointed out that, due to the uprooting of over 200,000 Jews from their homes in the past 18 months, the needs which JDC must meet in 1963 must be substantially greater than those of the past year.

The scope of JDC’s activities in various parts of the world was revealed in reports presented by country directors attending the conference from Europe, North Africa, Iran and Israel. The remaining Jewish inhabitants in Moslem countries, according to the reports, are estimated at 300, 000. In these countries, the JDC network of activities aids some 100, 000 persons each year. In spite of emigration from some of these countries, the needs for 1963 will be greater rather than less, because of the weakening of local leadership and the worsening of economic conditions, the reports showed.