American Jews were told today by William Rosenwald, general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, that “if the UJA suffers any lessening of support in the new Jewish year, hundreds of thousands of Jews in North African lands may face a worsening of their plight as vital welfare and life-saving services are cut back in a time of unrelieved tension, strife and violence.”
Mr. Rosenwald issued this warning in a message to the 5,225 community campaigns that are affiliated with the Appeal. He pointed out that, “as the Jewish New Year dawns, 70,000 Jews in Morocco and Tunisia are on record as desiring the earliest possible movement to Israel, and have appealed to the UJA to make this feasible.” In the case of Jews in Morocco, he declared, “it is a desire to escape a charged atmosphere of violence and fear that has already brought death, the burning and razing of Jewish homes, and the looting and destruction of Jewish shops.”
The UJA general chairman acknowledged that both the French Government and the moderate Nationalist parties in Morocco and Tunisia are friendly toward the Jews but he stressed that “some Jews have been killed, others injured and many made homeless and shorn of the means by which they earn their livelihood in the rioting and political strife that often gets out of hand.”
Mr. Rosenwald called attention in his message to a current emergency drive for $10,000,000 in cash, pointing out that the UJA seeks fulfillment of this special goal by the middle of October to make possible a 60-day transfer to Israel of 10,000 Jews from Morocco alone, 5,000 during October and an equal number in November.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
