Edmund de Rothschild, presiding at a dinner of the Central British Fund for Relief and Rehabilitation here, said that Western countries generally are more inclined now to admit refugees than they were in the past, but the need for assistance to refugees is still great to provide them with the elementary needs. Mr. de Rothschild said that 7,000 out of 15,000 Czechoslovakian Jews were on the move as a result of the Soviet occupation of that country and that in Poland old people had to “pick up their roots and leave.” He also spoke of the plight of Jews in the Arab countries.
He said that there were still 1,000 Jews in Egyptian prisons and that Jews in Libya. Syria and Iraq are suffering inhuman treatment. Lebanon is the only exception in this regard among the Arab states, he said. He noted that the Central British Fund, along with other Jewish organizations such as the Joint Distribution Committee, carry out the major rescue operations for refugees.
(Samuel L. Haber, Joint Distribution Committee executive vice-chairman, told a United Jewish Appeal study mission in Israel than 40,000 to 50,000 Jews have fled from Moslem and Eastern European nations since the Six-Day War.)
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