“The problems of Jewish education in the Diaspora and immigration into Israel call for extreme efforts by the Jewish community; neither can be done at the expense of the other,” Mrs. Rose L. Halprin, chairman of the New York branch of the Jewish Agency executive and former president of Hadassah, declared here today following her return from attendance at the World Conference on Jewish Education in Jerusalem.
“Though these problems seem unrelated, they are in fact interrelated parts of total Jewish needs, each demanding the full attention of the Jewish community,” Mrs. Halprin stressed. She reported that delegates attending the World Conference on Jewish Education from 32 countries–many of them with small Jewish populations–emphasized the urgent need of strengthening Jewish education to assure Jewish survival through an educated Jewry with knowledge of its past and awareness of what Judaism stands for. At the same time the delegates were able to witness the “staggering problems” Israel faces in absorbing thousands of immigrants fleeing from countries which once seemed safe for Jews but whose Jewish communities are now in process of liquidation in the face of virulent anti-Semitism and resurgent fascism, she said.
Mrs. Halprin declared that the Yishuv in Israel is being taxed very heavily, in proportion to its relative size, to help absorb the newcomers. She urged United States Jews to “remember the obligations that history has placed on this generation of Jews to give home and haven to the large masses of Jews who are still on-the-march seeking safety and dignity.”
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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.