UAHC to Resettle 1800 Boat People; Jewish Social Service Agencies and Synagogues Will Cooperate in E

Jewish social service agencies and synagogues will cooperate in the nationwide program undertaken by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) to resettle 1800 boat people and other Indochinese refugees. New techniques will be used by UAHC, organization leaders disclosed at a news conference here last Friday, as distinguished from the American Jewish communal efforts towards resettling Soviet, Iranian and Syrian Jews in recent years.

Rabbi Irwin Herman, of Los Angeles, director of the UAHC’s Pacific Southwest Council, noted that in most Jewish communities, the resettlement of the Soviet and Mideast Jews was through Jewish social service agencies and volunteers. In California, the assistance is on a joint Jewish family service-synagogue basis, with the agency providing professional support on a family case basis while the synagogue provides complete sponsorship of the refugee family.

“This is a total voluntary effort,” Herman said. “No money will be accepted from synagogue budgets.” He emphasized that UAHC will not permit a family under its sponsorship to go on public welfare. “We will support them until they are able to support themselves,” he said.

While a six-month period is considered the time usually required to resettle a family, experience has shown that a refugee family becomes totally independent in three months or less, Herman said. UAHC, presenting 735 Reform Jewish congregations has accepted responsibility for the 1800 boat people as part of the 6000 refugees that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) has undertaken to resettle.

EXPLAINS MEANING OF 1800 FIGURE

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, UAHC president explained at the news conference at the UAHC center here that the figure 1800 was chosen because it represents 100 times “chai,” the Hebrew word for life, which also signifies the number 18. the 1800 figure also stands for twice the number of Jewish refugees from Nazism who, as the world’s first boat people, were passengers aboard the MSSt. Louis in 1939.

Herman and Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Judea in Tarzana, Calif., came here on completion of a tour of a dozen major American cities where they sought commitments from members of Reform synagogues to sponsor refugee families. The UAHC program is coordinated with HIAS and local Jewish welfare federations UAHC reported.