JDC Reports Aided 374,000 Jews in 1967; June War Vastly Increased Relief Needs

The 1967 Arab-Israel war placed heavy and unexpected demands on the Joint Distribution Committee and had widespread repercussions that “will be felt in Jewish communities throughout the world,” according to the JDC’s annual report issued today by Samuel L. Haber, executive vice chairman of the agency. Mr. Haber noted that the hostilities touched off a new wave of emigration of Jews from Arab countries which placed additional burdens on Jewish welfare agencies trying to find them jobs and housing. Mass immigration from North Africa during the summer months that followed the war involved approximately 20,000 Jews of whom 3,000 were from Libya. 1,000 from Egypt and Lebanon and the rest from Morocco and Tunisia, Mr. Haber reported. They fled to France, Italy and other countries with little on. no funds and few belongings and crowded into neighborhoods already dense with refugees, the JDC report said.

Mr. Haber said the JDC in 1967 aided approximately 374,000 needy Jews in more than 25 countries around the world. They included 91,000 in Israel, 149,000 in Europe, 58,000 in Arab and Moslem countries, 5,000 in other areas such as Australia and India and an estimated 71,000 who were assisted in programs cutting across national boundaries. JDC’s health, medical and welfare and rehabilitation programs entailed expenditures of $22,470,430 and resulted in a deficit for the year of over $850,000, Mr. Haber reported. “While many of the migrants are potentially self sufficient,” Mr. Haber noted, “their immediate welfare needs plus the long term rehabilitation of others presents a serious challenge to JDC.” Mr. Haber said that this was “particularly true in light of current high un- employment in France for unskilled and semi-skilled categories to which most of the newcomers belong.”

He declared also that still remaining in various Arab countries were many Jews with little hope of escape who are “generally beyond even JDC’s assistance.” He reported that “mere subsistence” had become a severe hardship on the families of several hundred Jews jailed in Syria and Iraq.

He reported that a major development in 1967 was resumption of JDC welfare operations in Rumania after a 20-year suspension. During Passover, JDC helped to serve 1,100 Rumanian Jews at public seders and more than 2,200 food packages were distributed for home observance by 3,300 Jews. He said the JDC welfare program would “help bring hope to the many destitute among the 100,000 Jews left in Rumania.”