Hadassah Opens Youth Aliyah Conference; Will Contribute $2,210,000

The Hadassah will contribute this year more than $2,210,000 for Youth Aliyah activities, it was announced here today at a special Youth Aliyah conference at which 700 Hadassah leaders discussed ways and means of rescuing and rehabilitating Jewish children from lands where Jews are oppressed. Hadassah is the official representative of the Youth Aliyah in the United States.

Addressing the conference, Mrs. A. P. Schoolman, national chairman of Hadassah’s Youth Aliyah committee, reported that the Israel Government will spend this year more than $1,000,000 from its development fund to expand housing and other facilities of Youth Aliyah’s 248 absorption centers in Israel to accommodate the increased influx of young people, especially, from Egypt and East European countries.

Principal speaker at the conference was Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, world patron of Youth Aliyah, who returned earlier this week from North Africa, where she inspected Youth Aliyah schools and other facilities. Other speakers were Dr. Miriam Freund, national president of Hadassah, who returned recently from a special mission to Israel; James T. Farrell, noted author, and Mrs. Cecil Hyman, wife of Israel’s Consul-General at New York.

Dr. Freund, who visited with Jewish refugee children from Egypt during her stay in Israel, said that the major problem confronting Youth Aliyah in handling the children from Egypt is psychological. “These children,” she reported, “come to Israel bewildered, unhappy, uprooted from the only home they ever knew. They cannot forget how their homes were destroyed; how their loved ones were taken away as hostages to detention centers. As they try to adjust to their new environment in Israel, many unanswerable questions keep going round in their minds. In the face of this, Youth Aliyah must do all in its power to give them–and children from other parts of the world–a new sense of security.”