A world-wide relief and reconstruction program for 1947, which will play an important role in determining the future of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe and Palestine, will be mapped at the national conference of the United Jewish Appeal which opens here tomorrow at the Ambassador Hotel, with more than 1,600 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the country participating.
The conference will review the rescue and relief activities conducted this year through the $100,000,000 United Jewish Appeal, and will decide on the sum to be raised for similar activities in the coming year. In determining the national U.J.A. goal for 1947, the delegates will consider the fact that new outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence have resulted in the mass flight of Jews from Poland and other countries; that the number of displaced Jews in Germany and Austria has more than doubled during the year; that the development of Palestine must be pushed at an accelerated pace to permit tens of thousands of homeless Jews in Europe to find haven there; and that immigration of uprooted Jews to the United States and other countries must be facilitated.
Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Assistant Secretary of State Major General John H. Hilldring will present to the delegates a report on the American Government’s efforts in behalf of the displaced Jews and will discuss the activities carried on by the military authorities in the American zone of occupation for the maintenance of the Jewish DP’s. Other speakers will include Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Edward M.M. Warburg, Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, Judge Morris Rothenberg, Edwin Rosenberg and leaders of Jewish communities in Europe.
NATIONAL EXECUTIVE HEARS REPORT ON INCREASING NEEDS OF JEWISH SURVIVORS
At a meeting today of the national executive committee of the United Jewish Appeal, Mrs. David M. Levy, national conference chairman, reported that the needs of the Jews who survived Hitlerism in Europe have increased greatly during the past year. She pointed out that American Jews acting through agencies of the U.J.A., had during 1946 helped to provide the means of survival for hundreds of thousands of Jews in Rumania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, Austria and other lands, in addition to helping 26,000 refugees find a new home in Palestine and about 18,000 reach the United States.
Mrs. Levy pointed out that the impending liquidation of UNRRA will confront the Joint Distribution Committee with new burdens in aiding Jews in areas where UNRRA has been operating. She estimated that at least 400,000 Jews in Europe will have to find new homes during the coming year, and declared that the great majority of these Jews look to Palestine as the land of their salvation. She also pointed to the program for liberalization of U.S. immigration laws which President Truman promised to submit to Congress.
The executive committee also heard a report from William Rosenwald, national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, outlining the purposes of the conference. Charles J. Rosenbloom and Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, national chairmen, also spoke on the objectives of the conference.
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