Ort to Enlarge Aid Program for Algerian Jewish Refugees in France

Vocational training services for 120,000 Algerian Jewish refugees will be greatly enlarged during the coming months, according to an announcement made by Dr. William Haber, president of the American ORT Federation, in a report submitted to the organization’s executive committee meeting today at the Hotel Commodore here.

As part of a “crash program of job rehabilitation, ” he declared that ORT schools in the Paris region, Marseilles, Lyon and Strasbourg would add 16 new industrial training courses, enrolling almost 1,000 refugee youth and adults, establish a vocational center in the Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, which has become a major center of newcomer settlement, in addition to the trade school just opened in Toulouse and the recently completed CRT schools in Marseilles and Lyon.

With the expiration of the one-year French government allotments, Dr. Haber stated, there is “ample evidence that large numbers of refugees are entering upon a critical time in their attempt to build a new life for themselves. Reports from Jewish welfare agencies in Paris and Marseilles particularly anticipate with foreboding the coming of winter.”

“Such reports indicate that thousands have not resolved their housing problems and many more have yet to acquire the skills and knowledge essential to getting a job and earning a living, ” he said. The pressure to do so is becoming daily more severe with the end of government aid. The latest measures are but down payments on the kind of large scale program of economic re-adaptation that is needed.”

Stepped-up activities in France, Dr. Haber announced, are part of the general development of ORT educational and economic aid services, which during the school year beginning this month will enroll 400,000 persons in over 600 ORT trade schools and related projects located in 19 countries. He estimated the cost at over $7,500,000.