Rabbi Shlomo Lorintz, an Agudat Israel deputy, cited statistics in Parliament today to the effect that the Jewish birthrate fell by one-third in Israel during the past decade to buttress an appeal for Government measures to encourage births.
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion expressed full approval of the religious deputy’s views, and expressed concern over the “alarming” rate of “artificial miscarriages. ” He disclosed that he had appointed a special committee to study the problem.
However, the Prime Minister added, he did not believe any good purpose would be served by the general debate which Rabbi Lorintz had 9requested, and proposed instead that the matter be submitted to a Knesset committee. The House accepted that suggestion. Rabbi Lorintz contrasted the Jewish birthrate decline with the continued rise in the number of births of the Moslem population, one of the world’s highest.
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