Expressing deep concern for the welfare of Jewish communities in Arab countries, the International Council on Jewish Social and Welfare Services today requested the United Nations and the United States Government to intervene on their behalf.
At an INTERCO meeting today, Murray I. Gurfein, president, and Charles H. Jordan, executive secretary, said member organizations, which include the Joint Distribution Committee. Central British Fund, Jewish Colonization Association, Standing Conference on European Jewish Community Services, United Hias Service and World ORT Union, are making every effort to bring the plight of Jewish communities in Arab countries to the attention of the world.
“We are receiving reports of atrocities perpetrated against defenseless men, women and children,” Mr. Gurfein said. “We shall not rest until these attacks are stopped and Jews in Arab lands are permitted to live in peace or to emigrate and resettle in countries of security and freedom.”
The World Jewish Congress simultaneously protested to United Nations Secretary-General U Thant against “measures now being taken by the Government of the United Arab Republic against its Jewish citizens and other Jewish residents in its territory, the effect of which can only be the extinction of the organized life of an ancient community with an unbroken history of more than 2,000 years.”
In its letter to Mr. Thant, signed by Dr. Maurice L. Perlzweig, head of the WJC’s international affairs department, the World Jewish Congress stressed that “the situation in the U.A.R. is, in various degrees, paralleled in some of the neighboring Arab states, where Jews have been arrested and even murdered, largely as a result of incessant radio incitement from Cairo.”
(In Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross notified the World Jewish Congress here this weekend that it had obtained permission from the Egyptian Government to visit Jews being held in Cairo prisons. A spokesman for the WJC here said it was believed that between 350 and 600 Jews were imprisoned in Cairo and Alexandria.)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
