The immigration picture as it pertains to Israel was explained today to the annual Joint Distribution Committee’s country directors meeting by Morris Laub, who is in charge of the overall J.D.C. Israel immigration program which has helped 500,000 Jews reach the Jewish state since V-E Day.
Mr. Laub, after presenting the situation as it pertains to Jews in Rumania, Poland and Iraq, stated that there are some 120,000 Jews who must be provided with massage to Israel before the emigration deadlines in these countries expires. He added that thousands of Jews in Germany, Austria, Morocco, Libya, have asked for aid to get to the Jewish state.
The Iraq Government’s sudden decision to permit Jews to leave only during one year, coming as it did at a time when thousands of Jews were leaving Rumania and Poland on deadlines, exhausted the J.D.C.’s annual immigration budget in the first nine months of 1950, Mr. Laub explained. However, he pointed out that 75,000 Jews from these three countries must be moved before the end of this year, as well as 10,000 from Iran and 25,000 from Germany and Austria.
Mr. Laub also reported that Jews elsewhere were in desperate straits, citing the Libyan situation. There, he said, 15,000 Jews face Moslem violence when the country is turned over to the Libyans in a little over a year, under a United Nations decision. At present, he reported, the J.D.C. is giving these people relief while they await transportation to Israel.
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