Plan to Transfer Jews from North Africa Presented to Hadassah

A comprehensive program for the transfer to Israel of the 450,000 Jew living under the threat of renewed anti-Jewish outbreaks by Arab extremists in North Africa was outlined today to the 40th annual convention of Hadassah by Moshe Kol, world chairman of the Youth Aliyah movement.

Mr. Kol, who arrived in the United States from Israel a few days ago, told the delegates that the Jews in Morocco, Tunisia and Tangier “are living in a tinder box that may explode at any moment.” He called upon Hadassah to make available additional funds to enable Youth Aliyah to undertake immediately the removal to Israel of one child from each Jewish family in North Africa. He estimated that the first phase of the exodus of Jews from North Africa to Israel would involve 75,000 Jewish children between the ages of 12 and 17, and would require five years to complete.

He explained that these children would be educated, rehabilitated, taught Hebrew and equipped with a trade or a profession, depending on their qualifications, in a Youth Aliyah settlement in Israel over a three-year period. Upon completion of their training, he said, other members of their families would be brought to Israel.

Mr. Kol expressed the hope that the French Government would take every conceivable measure to halt the anti-Jewish riots and destruction in Morocco, but he warned Hadassah against underestimating the gravity of the situation. “We who have only recently lost 6,000,000 of our people in Europe cannot afford to take risks,” he said.

“We are hopeful of conducting this exodus from North Africa in an orderly and systematic manner, but we are prepared, if necessary, to get the Jews out of North Africa on an immediate emergency basis,” Mr. Kol stated. “With your help, Israel took the entire Jewish population out of Iraq in 1951 within a 12-month period. If need be, we’ll do the same for the Jews of North Africa, but we are hopeful that it won’t be necessary.”

HADASSAH ADOPTS STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES ON CIVIL LIBERTIES

The convention unanimously adopted a statement of principles expressing “unequivocal belief that security with freedom is an imperative and an achievable goal for America.” Presented by Mrs. Moses P. Epstein, American Affairs chairman of Hadassah, the statement warned that “to bar the concept of free enterprise from the realm of ideas is to betray our past and to endanger our future.”

The statement of principles reaffirmed Hadassah’s “faith in the vigor and vitality of the American way of life, and in those freedoms which are embodied in the Constitution of the United States” and added: “Without minimizing the dangers currently threatening these freedoms, or underestimating the dangers inherent in the awful destructive capacity of atomic warfare, Hadassah records its deep concern at the growing tendency to meet these dangers in a climate of fear and hysteria.

“To equate noncomformity with disloyalty; to whittle away the inalienable rights guaranteed to all Americans by their Constitution in the name of defending that instrument; to bar the concept of free enterprise from the realm of ideas is to betray our past and to endanger our future. Freedom to pursue the truth, to exchange ideas and to disagree with accepted opinion are the freedoms which have made America great and represent its proudest possession.”

The statement concluded: “The American tradition of freedom is also the Jewish tradition. In these days of understandable anxiety, we, as Americans and as Jews, must reforge the links which bind us to the great ideals of freedom bequeathed to us by our forebearers. Civil liberties are the foundation of this freedom and constitute the most powerful weapon against totalitarianism and tyranny.”