J.D.C. Conference in Paris Discusses Jewish Relief Problems

A five-day conference of the Joint Distribution Committee to consider major problems affecting needy Jews in Europe and Moslem countries, as well as those of disabled immigrants in Israel, opened here today. L.D.C. field directors from some 20 countries and Jewish welfare leaders from various parts of the world are attending the parley.

Addressing the opening session of the conference, Mcses W. Beckelman, owners seas director of the J.D.C., revealed that 35 percent of the J.D.C. budget is being spent on aid to European Jews, and the remainder has been allocated to Jews in Moslem countries and to Malben, the J.D.C. program for aide to handicapped immigrants in Israel. In Israel alone, he said, the J.D.C. spent $11,500,000 this year.

Mr. Beckelman estimated that there are still some 52,000 men, women and children in various parts of Europe who are partially or wholly dependent on J.D.C. aid. He declared that the need of many of these Jews, particularly the “hard-core” cases, is more desperate now than at the end of the war. He reported that since the war’s end, his organization spent $325,000,000 on aid.

The American delegation to the conference is headed by Dr. Joseph J.Schwartz, executive vice-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, and includes Samuel Goldsmith, executive director of the Jewish Welfare Fund of Chicago, and Isidore Sobeloff, executive director of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit. Among the international leaders who are scheduled to address the parley are Dr. G.J. van Heuwen Goedhart, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Hugh Gibson, executive director of the Provisional Intergovernmental Committee for the Movement of Migrants from Europe.