Jacob Tsur, president of the Israeli Council for Jews from Arab Countries, launched an appeal today to Syrian President Hafez Assad to improve the status of the country’s 4000 Jews. Tsur, who launched his appeal a week before Assad is to confer in Geneva with President Carter, said he will meet in Paris with Senate President Alain Poher and other French political leaders from all parties to seek their help and personal intervention in this quest.
The situation of the remaining Jews in other Arab countries no longer causes concern, Tsur said. In Egypt and Iraq some 400 Jews remain in each of these two countries and they consist mainly of elderly and sick people. Tsur said they are well treated and apparently have no desire to leave. As to Syria, the Council’s president said two issues required immediate attention.
One issue is the plight of some 520 young Jewish women who are unable to marry in Syria and need permission to leave and try to find Jewish husbands elsewhere. Tsur said Assad, as a practicing Moslem, “ought to sympathize with this personal tragedy.” He added “There has been a degree of liberalization in the treatment of Syrian Jews and the time has now come for the authorities to prove the sincerity of their pledges.”
The second urgent issue, Tsur said, concerns the small Jewish community of Kamishli, a remote town on the Turkish border. The handful of Jews feel cut off from other Jews and need permission to leave their homes and settle in Damascus. Tsurasked the Syrian authorities to grant this authorization on humanitarian grounds.
CORRECTION Two dropped lines in Monday’s News Bulletin story dealing with former President Nixon’s remarks about Jews while he was in office made it seem as if the New York Daily News was the only paper of the three mentioned in the story to have carried Nixon’s remarks. It should have stated that the News was not the only paper to have done so. It was also carried in The Washington Post which, in fact, was the basis for the News report.
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