J.D.C. Reports Spending $30,000,000 in 1961; Cites North African Emergency

The sum of $30,109,000 was spent by the Joint Distribution Committee in 1961 in aid to more than 250,000 Jews–men, women and children–in 27 countries, it was disclosed today in the annual report of the organization presented by Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman. For 1962 JDC has adopted a budget of $30,685,750 to aid an estimated total of 325,000 needy Jews.

As a result of unforeseen emergencies, Mr. Leavitt reported, the JDC incurred a deficit in 1961 of $362,000, the first since 1950. Among the “unforeseen crises” which led to the deficit Mr. Leavitt spotlights an upsurge of emigration from North Africa. Thousands of refugees required emergency aid, particularly in France.

“There was no possibility of making up these funds by diverting them from other areas,” he comments. “Some programs were cut back or eliminated; but hundreds of thousands–not refugees–were still in desperate need of JDC help. They could not be abandoned.”

The report said that in 1961 JDC provided food for an average of 92,735 people a month, two-thirds of them in Moslem lands. It also granted cash relief to an average of 40,845 persons a month. Other aid included medical care for 40,000, aid to 2,860 in homes for children and youngsters, care for 5,625 in homes for the aged, assistance to schools with 61,500 students, and aid to cultural and religious programs involving a total of 38,900 scholars and students.

Although the United Jewish Appeal continued to provide the bulk of JDC funds in 1961, Mr. Leavitt reports a substantial allocation from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, to be used for relief and rehabilitation of victims of Nazism. He also notes smaller sums contributed by the Jewish communities of Canada, Latin America and by several governmental and intergovernmental agencies. Since its inception in 1914, the report indicates, JDC has spent close to $725,000,000 to aid an estimated total of four million needy Jews throughout the world.

In an introduction to the report, Edward M. M. Warburg, JDC chairman, eulogizes the late Paul Baerwald, distinguished philanthropist and honorary chairman of JDC, who died July 2, 1961. Of him, Mr. Warburg declares: “He was foremost among those dedicated men to whom such an act as aiding the helpless was the practical application of a religious ideal. This ideal was at the core of his conviction that to keep people alive was only a first step in the work of rescue; that it was equally important to restore to the hopeless and harassed their essential dignity and faith so they could once again begin to cope with the problem of living.”

INFLUX OF LARGE NUMBER OF REFUGEES INTO FRANCE EMPHASIZED

Mr. Leavitt reports that one of the most significant developments of 1961 was the influx of large numbers of refugees into France, principally Marseille and Paris, and the efforts of the French Jewish community to provide relief and rehabilitation services for them.

The outbreak of fighting at Bizerte between French and Tunisian armed forces last July fanned anti-Jewish feeling, the report states. Some 3,500 Jews left the country by mid-September and by the end of the year the figure had risen to 10,000. “From Algeria, torn by civil war, nearly twice as many Jews emigrated to Israel in 1961 as in all the years from 1956 to 1961,” Mr. Leavitt indicates. There was no way of determining accurately the number who fled to France, he adds,

“Jewish refugees from Tunisia arrived in France penniless, with no friends or relatives to aid them, their need desperate–and found JDC waiting for them, working with French Jews to provide food and clothing and medicines and housing–and the reassurance that they were not alone,” the report says. Added to this number were the refugees who came from other areas, including Egypt. “Each month an average of 1,135 Egyptian Jews received JDC aid in France,” Mr. Leavitt reports. Emigration of the remaining Jews was spurred by the nationalization legislation introduced in Egypt in July and by the new steps taken by President Nasser against humanitarian agencies.

Despite the emigration of Jews from Moslem countries, more than 108,000 Jews, most of them in North Africa, required JDC assistance during the year, Mr. Leavitt declares. He emphasizes that although conditions are not identical in all Moslem countries, “throughout North Africa, 1961 saw anti-Jewish attacks spread from one city to another, from one country to another. These attacks, he stresses, added to a situation which had already become difficult because of worsening economic conditions.

Morocco continued to require the largest share of JDC aid; 67,000 Jews were helped by JDC in 1961 as against 66,000 in 1960. JDC aid also went to 14,580 in Tunisia, 2,785 in Algeria and 21,430 in Iran.

78,000 JEWS HELPED IN ISRAEL; MANY OF THEM AGED AND HANDICAPPED

In addition to the aid given by the JDC to Jews in Moslem countries, Mr. Leavitt outlines in detail the aid activities conducted by the JDC in European countries and in Israel. He reveals that during 1961 JDC aided almost 78,000 men, women and children in Israel. Of these 47,290 were cared for through the JDC-Malben program on behalf of aged, ill and handicapped newcomers.