A two-day Hadassah conference, attended by 600 delegates, was opened here today with a plea to enable thousands of Jewish children from the Moslem countries in the Middle East and North Africa to leave for Israel. Mrs. Samuel W. Halprin, national president of the organization, and other speakers stressed the necessity of speed in helping oppressed Jewish youths make their way to the Jewish state.
Addressing the gathering, Leonard Bernstein, the young Jewish composer and conductor, said the simple but compelling dictates of humanity and conscience make it imperative to help speed these young Jewish people on to Israel. This undertaking, he added, will bring gratification not only from a humanitarian point of view, but from a cultural one. “These children will one day constitute a reservoir of talent from which will flow spiritual enrichment to Israel and the rest of the world,” he said.
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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.