“The Jews of Europe see vocational training as the best means of facilitating their immigration to Palestine and other countries, and his is one of the reasons that explains the tremendous growth of the work of ORT throughout Europe,” George Backer, president of the American ORT Federation and of the World ORT Union, declared here today following his return from Paris where he attended a World ORT Conference.
Mr. Backer disclosed that the Joint Distribution Committee had renewed its agreement to finance the ORT program in Europe in 1948 with an allocation up to 2,400,000 He emphasized that the “Jews of Europe are anxious to leave Europe –the continent that has again become darkened by war clouds, political chaos and insecurity.”
Aaron B. Tart, executive vies-president of the American ORT, who returned from a two-month tour of ORT installations in France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, reported that the ORT program in Europe now offers vocational training to 20,000 Jews. Half of these are in the U.S. and British zones of Germany, he said, adding “it is the hope of the trainees to utilize the skills gained in the ORT schools upon their immigration to Palestine and the North and South American countries and so contribute to the industrial development of their newly adopted lands.”
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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.