U.J.A. Launches Emergency Campaign for $50,000,000 in Cash Before End of 1950

For the first time in its twelve-year history, the United Jewish Appeal today launched a short-term emergency campaign to raise $50,000,000 in cash before the end of 1950 to effect the immediate rescue of large numbers of Jews from eastern Europe, Iraq and Iran whose legal right to leave for Irael may be withdrawn at any time.

In announcing the special rescue drive, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.J.A. general chairman, emphasized that both the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee are without the resources necessary to carry them through the “critical winter months that lie ahead.” Mr. Morgenthau explained that the U.J.A. had exhausted the budget allotted for transportation and that unless new funds are realized within the next 50 days it will be impossible to continue large-scale transports to Israel from Eastern Europe and Moslem countries.

The U.J.A. chairman stated that the U.J.A. had interpreted as “a mandate from the entire American Jewish community” the decision unanimously adopted by the more than 1,200 leaders of 45 major national Jewish organizations and 500 local Jewish communities at the recent National Planning Conference calling for an emergency campaign. He warned that the approach of winter had aggravated the position of many Jews in Arab countries who, in anticipation of their scheduled departure for Israel, had sold their homes and possessions. He cited the case of 4,000 Jews in Teheran who, having sold their homes, were living in makeshift tents in the only Jewish public property in Teheran–the Jewish cemetery.