Palestine Organizations Appeal to Bermuda Conference; Offer Haven for Refugees

Leading Jewish organizations in Palestine today cabled a joint appeal to the Conference emphasizing that every Jewish family, farmstead and settlement in the country is prepared to offer haven for refugees from Nazi persecution.

The appeal proposed a list of measures for the consideration of the Bermuda meeting in line with similar proposals advanced in Great Britain and the United States. These included, besides the opening of Palestine to refugees, the provision of asylums in neutral and United Nations countries; approach to the Axis to permit Jews to depart; creation of special inter-Allied refugee machinery; shipment of food and medicine to victims unable to leave enemy territory; exchange of Jews in occupied lands for enemy subjects in Allied countries.

The cable was signed by the Joint Committee to Aid Jews in Enemy-occupied Countries on which are represented the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the Jewish National Council, the New Zionist Organization, the Agudas Israel Orthodox Organization and the Association of European Immigrant Societies. It concluded with a request that Jews be given representation in any inter-Allied body which may be formed as result of the outcome of the Bermuda parley.

Chief Rabbi Isaao Herzog, in a Passover broadcast over the Jerusalem radio station, appealed to the Bermuda Conference for active measures to save the Jews in Nazi Europe. “The Anglo-American discussions in Bermuda are the only ray of light on the dark horizon,” he said. “The eyes of Israel, and indeed of all lovers of humanity, are directed today to Bermuda. God forbid that our hopes should be disappointed. This would mean a serious defeat for the moral plans of the United Nations.”