Resolutions backing the United Nations stand against aggression in Korea, and urging immediate passage by the United States Senate of the U.N. Genocide Convention outlawing destrucion of ethnic, racial or religious groups, were unanimously passed here tonight by 2,000 delegates attending the 36th annual convention of Hadassah at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Examining the question whether support of Israel involves dual loyalties on the part of American citizens, Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, Hadassah leader, who presided, said: “Our first political loyalties are, must and should be to the United States. In supporting Israel in its struggle for democracy, we act in our own self-interest. A strong Israel means that democracy will continue to keep a foothold in the Middle East.”
Dr. Mordecai Kaplan, leader of the Reconstructionist movement, analyzed the fears expressed by some Zionist leaders, that the creation of the state of Israel might result in the withering away of Jewish life and values in other lands. Dr. Kaplan praised Hadassah for “making Zionism a method whereby American Jews are enabled to live in two civilizations, the American and the Jewish, by combining the best in each to enrich both.” Zionism, rightly understood, can never encourage American Jews to segregate or isolate themselves, he said. “Zionism alone is qualified to solve the difficult problem of the gap which divides Israeli Jewry from Jews else-where in the world,” he added.
VOTES TO RAISE $3,500,000 TO FINANCE NEW HOSPITAL IN JERUSALEM
Hadassah will raise $3,500,000 within the next three years to finance the construction of a new Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem which was voted last night by the delegates attending the organization’s convention here. This sum will be raised outside the regular annual budget for Hadassah activities in Israel and this country, the parley decided.
The women’s Zionist organization acted on the hospital question soon after receipt of a cable from Israel Premier David Ben Gurion who told the delegates that the need of the people of Jerusalem for a hospital is so urgent that it can not await the outcome of the Mt. Scopus question. The Government of Israel has made available to the organization a 60-acre site in Jerusalem for the new hospital and nurses’ training school which will replace the six crowded and inadequate buildings which now house the Hadassah medical organization in the city. The Hadassah facilities on Mt. Scopus were damaged during the Arab invasion.
Dr. Eli Davis, director of the Hadassah medical organization in Israel, who flew to the convention from Jerusalem, told the delegates that even if the hospital on Mt. Scopus were in full operation there would still be a need for another hospital in Jerusalem. He said that 80 percent of the present hospital’s space is occupied by beds while crammed into the remaining 20 percent are operating theatres, laboratories, technical services and kitchens. Dr. Davis reported that trachoma, ringworm and infant mortality in the immigrant camps have been checked, but that tuberoulosis remains a major problem.
Dr. Ieo Mayer, attending surgeon at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York, who recently returned from a tour of Israel which he visited at the invitation of the Jewish state’s Ministry of Health, declared that the Hadassah medical staff is rendering top-flight medical service. However, he stated that the institutions in which the staff works are “ill adapted to their important work” and that the large number of sick people makes it urgent to expand the organization’s building program.
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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.
