New Refugee Flight Channels Mapped if War Spreads to Mediterranean

Plans have been made to provide alternative channels of immigration to Palestine and negotiations are now under way for establishing a new route to North and South American countries, in the event of the spread of war to the Mediterranean, it was announced today by Rabbis Abba Hillel Silver and Jonah B. Wise, national chairmen of the United Jewish Appeal, in a statement outlining the effects of the war upon the activities of the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Jewish Appeal and the National Refugee Service, which are the constituent agencies of the nationwide United Jewish Appeal campaign for $23,000,000.

An agreement has been reached with the English and Russian governments whereby refugee immigrants bound for Palestine would leave from Stockholm and Vilna and follow a route through Odessa. Others would sail for Palestine by way of the Port of Constanza on the Black Sea.

Arrangements are being made, it was stated, whereby refugees bound for the Western Hemisphere would travel across Russia to Siberia, where they would go from Vladivostock to Yokohama in Japan and from there across the Pacific to the Americas. Provision has thus been made for the contingency of the enlargement of the theatre of war so that the avenues of escape for Jewish refugees from the danger and distress zones of the European continent may be kept open.

Rabbi Silver and Rabbi Wise pointed out that lack of funds rather than difficulties resulting from the present European conflict stands in the way of the fullest implementation of the programs for emergency relief and rehabilitation in the war zone and other parts of Europe, refugee immigration and settlement in Palestine and refugee integration in the United States.