The Executive Vice Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee reported here that thousands of Jews throughout the world went without needed help in 1968 as a result of the Six-Day War in Israel. According to Samuel Haber, emergencies such as the migration of over 2,000 Jews from Poland following a renewed outbreak of anti-Semitism and the flight of 4,000 Jews from Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion forced the relief agency to divert funds from on-going programs. Mr. Haber said, “As a result, services which bring life-saving and life-giving hope to children, the aged and handicapped had to be postponed, curtailed or eliminated.”
The JDC leader made his statement at a press conference following discussions at the annual JDC overseas conference. The meeting brought together the directors of JDC programs in Europe. Israel, North Africa and Iran, as well as American communal leaders and representatives of cooperating agencies to review developments and plan the budget for the coming year. The JDC, which aids 350,000 Jews in 27 countries, is a major beneficiary of the United Jewish Appeal.
Mr. Haber listed specific groups of people hurt by the diversion of funds and lack of funds. In North Africa and Iran, he said, 2,000 aged, sick and handicapped Jews received cash relief grants that were inadequate to maintain a minimum standard of health and decency; an additional $144,000 is needed. In addition, $55,000 is needed for a housing program for 1,850 of the same people, he said.
In France, according to Mr. Haber, 5,000 Jews, half of them newcomers from North Africa, receive only 60 cents a day toward food. A half million dollars are needed to provide them with an adequate level of relief, he said. Mr. Haber reported that thousands of Jews in dozens of French provincial towns have no synagogue or community center. The 65,000 Jews of Marseilles, France’s second largest city, have no old age home or adequate Jewish schools and the 20,000 Jews in Lyons also lack a Jewish day school. He said an overall expenditure of $2 million is needed for new construction projects and to complete integration of North African Jews.
In Israel, Mr. Hber said, many thousands of non-aged, chronically ill patients have suffered from deferment of an outlay of $85,000 for a rehabilitation program. They include victims of strokes, traffic accidents, muscular and other crippling diseases. Hard-of-hearing children in Galilee cannot be helped because of the need to eliminate a $59,000 project to expand the small existing facility in Haifa, he said. A geriatric unit in a Jerusalem hospital for the chronically ill costing $85,000 had to be deferred and a day care center for mentally retarded children in a district north of Beersheba cannot be built for the lack of $25,000, Mr. Haber reported.
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