The Joint Distribution Committee will resume its program of relief activities for Polish Jewry next month with the inauguration of a feeding program for children, Charles H. Jordan, JDC director general, announced today at the opening session of the 12th annual JDC country directors meeting. “First things come first and there can be no question in anybody’s mind of the primacy of doing something at once for hungry children,” Mr. Jordan said.
The 250 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the world assembled at UNESCO House here to participate in the JDC parley heard Amory Houghton, United States Ambassador to France, hail the achievements of the Jewish relief and rehabilitation organization and express satisfaction that the Polish Government had consented to a resumption of JDC activities. The Ambassador praised the JDC’s program as “commensurate” with the United States responsibilities abroad and asserted it was an “inspiration for us.”
Mr. Jordan said that the JDC did not yet know the extent of its full program in Poland, but “we do know that our immediate concern will be for those newly repatriated from Russia, among whom there are already 10, 000 Jews and many more to follow.” The Government of Poland, he continued, is doing what it can but supplementary feeding, housing, employment and schooling programs must be instituted immediately.
“These people need so much more than other repatriates from Russia,” the JDC aide declared. “Non-Jews, upon their return, find relatives to receive them and to help them in the initial stages of settlement and integration. The Jews return to find neither relatives nor friends–practically all were wiped out in Nazi concentration and annihilation camps.”
A radical reversal in the trend of Jewish immigration to Israel was reported to the meeting by Dr. Dov Joseph, Jewish Agency treasurer and one of the executive members responsible for immigration absorption. Of the 81, 000 immigrants who arrived in the Jewish State during the past 12 months, he pointed out, more than 40, 000 came from Eastern European countries, 13, 000 fled Egypt, 21, 000 came from North Africa and the remainder were from a variety of countries throughout the world. By contrast, Jews from North Africa made up 80 percent of the total immigration in 1956, Dr. Joseph noted.
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