Post-war Jewish Emigration to Latin America Predicted by J.D.C. Representative

Considerable post-war Jewish immigration to Latin American countries was predicted here today by Louis H. Sobel, who has just returned to the United States after spending ten months in South America as a representative of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Sobel said that the impression he received after visiting nine South American countries was that “South America is one of the few places on this war-scarred globe where refugees may actually plan for the future.”

“The rate of refugee progress in South America has been so rapid and so remarkable that it would be difficult to pick out a single example to symbolise it,” Mr. Sobel continued. Many refugees, he stated, have set up their own businesses. Others have leased or purchased farms. Still others have started factories, sometimes introducing new products.

“In the light of these refugee achievements,” Mr. Sobel pointed out, “it is natural to hope for large-scale immigration from war-wracked Europe to South America when this conflict is over. I say ‘naturally,’ because there is no doubt that government circles there are greatly impressed by the efforts which the newcomers have made to gain an economic foothold and to identify themselves more and more with the social and cultural life of their new homelands.”

Practically all Jewish communities in South America, with the exception of the Jews in Bolivia, are now in a position to maintain their own institutions, Mr. Sobel reported. The work of the J.D.C. in Latin America, he emphasized, does not end with furthering refugee integration. Within the non-refugee communities themselves the J.D.C. has sought to encourage the coordination and development of institutional activities and to stimulate greater participation in refugee aid work. Some communities are conducting their own campaigns to raise funds for overseas relief, to be administered by the J.D.C. Others are concentrating for the moment on establishing more local institutions.

“In Buenos Aires,” Mr. Sobel related, “there was latterly a veritable epidemic of cornerstone-laying for nurseries, homes and schools being built by the Jewish community. We are hopeful that all communities may be able increasingly to assume greater responsibilities toward less fortunate Jews throughout the world. The work of the J.D.C. in South and Central America is primarily a long-range project, with the accent shifting more and more from relief to rehabilitation. A functional analysis of the J.D.C.’s expenditures in Latin America since 1936, which total $2,857,000, shows that allotments for rehabilitative aid have increased over those for pure relief.”