More than 30,000 Jews in Palestine are subsisting on a starvation diet which “has converted Palestine into an open field for epidemics,” Dr. Abraham Katznelson, head of the Welfare Department of the Jewish National Council, declared today at a press conference here.
Dr. Katznelson pointed out that the cost of living in Palestine is comparatively the highest in the world, with the price index at 300, using the year before the war as a basis. During 1942, he said, the index jumped 100 points compared to a rise of about 15 points in England during the same period. He demanded that the Palestine Government act immediately to increase its contribution to the health and welfare activities in Palestine, in order to prevent the possibility of wide-spread epidemic hitting the Yishuv.
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