Hadassah Convention Hears Reports on Growth of Organization; Raised $9,000,000 This Year

Hadassah raised $9,000,000 during the past ten-and-a-half months for its projects in Israel and its work in the United States, and gained 10,000 new members during the same period, it was reported today at the Hadassah convention now taking place here.

The 2,000 delegates attending the convention heard a report by Moshe Kol, chairman of the Youth Immigration Department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, on the problems which the Agency now faces in trying to bring to Israel as many Jewish children from European countries as possible.

“At this very moment Youth Aliyah is racing against time,” Mr. Kol said, “to deliver 35,000 Jewish children from the Iron Curtain countries to Israel. There are 20,000 in Poland and Rumania whose doors are currently open to Jewish emigration. An all-out effort must be made to rescue these children, because if international tension should increase or war break out, fate would be black for Jewish youth in these nations where they are considered ‘undesirable elements.'”

There were 15,000 Jewish children in Hungary where Jewish emigration is still considered illegal, Mr. Kol disclosed. Those Hungarian children, who have found their way into Israel, he said, have done so through devious routes and from transit camps in friendly nations. An unremitting pressure must be exerted to enable these youngsters to make their way to their true homeland in Israel, Mr. Kol said.

Terming the situation grim, Mr. Kol said that in the past ten months only 1,200 boys and girls from the Iron Curtain countries had succeeded in getting to Israel. Poland, he noted, had begun to allow Jewish emigration only three months ago. A problem of equally critical importance for Youth Aliyah, said Mr. Kol, “is to bring to Israel the young Jewish generation from the Arab countries, who are living depressed lives and who are surrounded by a hostile Arab population.”