In response to the emergency situation requiring increased funds to move large numbers of Jews out of Rumania and Iraq and other distress centers, Jewish community leaders meeting here at the National Report Conference of the United Jewish Appeal today presented a total of $11,900,000 in cash to the campaign for settlement in Israel and refugee aid in all parts of the world.
The presentation of these checks brought to a total of $53,762,000 the amount of cash that was received by the United Jewish Appeal since Jan. 1, 1950, it was announced by Judge Morris Rothenberg, national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, who presided at the closing session of the four-day conference here.
Declaring that “for the first time in the history of the U.J.A., immigration of Jews to safety and security has been drastically curtailed because of lack of funds,” the principal resolution adopted by the conference urged that American Jews be informed “that campaign results and cash payments on pledges today are tragically inadequate to meet the increased needs that have suddenly arisen in the last few months.”
To cope with the requirements of the new immigration from Rumania and Iraq, the conference adopted the following three-point program:
1. The continuation, regardless of any time schedule, of all campaigns throughout the summer months in behalf of the U.J.A.
2. The resolicitation of contributors whose gifts have not measured up to standards of responsibility set in each community, so that the millions of additional dollars so desperately necessary may now become available.
3. The establishment of new, active cash collection committees to go forward at once to press for the conversion into cash of all pledges.
The conference further resolved to “issue a solemn warning that urgent deadlines exist for the immigration into Israel of Jews from Rumania, Iraq, and other countries.” Campaigns now approaching a climax in 3,400 communities throughout the country have raised substantially more than $54,000,000 received in cash. However, in most instances contributors make remittances on a year-round basis.
The sum of $3,250,000 was received from the New York United Jewish Appeal; $1,500,000 from the Philadelphia campaign; $1,000,000 from Los Angeles; $600,000 from Cleveland; $500,000 from Boston; $500,000 from Detroit and $250,000 each from Rochester, N.Y., Newark and Miami.
Golda Myerson, Minister of Labor in the Government of Israel, warned the delegates that tens of thousands of Jews now clamoring for admission to Israel faced the same fate of annihilation that overtook large numbers of Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe, if Israel is forced by lack of funds to bar its doors to them. Mrs. Myerson referred to the struggle of the people of Israel to absorb the Jews of Iraq and Rumania as another war in which “courage, self-sacrifice and self-confidence” will not prevail unless American Jews provide increased material help through the United Jewish Appeal.
“Self-confidence and courage will not produce the timber, the steel, the pipe, the roads and the homes that we must have to receive and to integrate this new wave of immigration,” she said. Declaring that the Jews of the United States helped the people of Israel win their war of independence in 1948, Israel’s foremost woman leader made a strong plea for the continuation and the extension of the partnership between the people of Israel and the Jews of America which made possible “the reality of the Jewish state.”
Emphasizing that “immigration is synonymous with the Jewish state,” Mrs. Myerson declared that “no one of us wants to live in a country which is required to close its doors to any Jew who needs a home.” In calling for increased financial help, Mrs. Myerson said: “Have we forgotten so soon what happened to the Jews of Europe who had no means of escape from persecution?”
WEIZMANN SAYS PEOPLE OF ISRAEL MUST RELY ON UJA AS NEVER BEFORE
In a message addressed to the parley, Israel President Dr. Chaim Weizmann emphasized that the people of Israel must rely on the United Jewish Appeal “as never before to help us carry the burden of the holy work we have begun.” He added: “The brave people of Israel suffered and our proud youth fell not to achieve the trappings of a state, but to establish a haven for our persecuted and homeless brothers. The recent lifting of emigration restrictions in Rumania and Iraq has revealed thousands of Jews begging us to accept them. We are still a small nation with meager resources; we alone cannot provide for them, yet we dare not permit them to remain in the immigrant camps in perpetual soup kitchens and coatly idleness. They need food, clothing, tents and tools, and they need them quickly.”
President Weizmann expressed his gratification at the “devotion and energy” shown by American Jewish leaders in support of this year’s campaign of the U.J.A. “I am compelled to urge upon you,” he said, “the greatest effort to convert pledges into immediate cash, and to hasten the successful conclusion of your campaign.”
Israel is confronted with the greatest immigration crisis of the last ## years,” Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, director-general of the Joint Distribution Committee, told the parley. “The Joint Distribution Committee, in the first five months of this year, moved more than 54,000 Jews to Israel and 6,000 to other lands,” Dr. Schwartz reported. By early fall, he said, the J.D.C. will have exhausted its total anticipated emigration funds for the year–approximately $14,000,000.
“The only immigrants being brought to Israel by J.D.C. at this moment are immigrants by necessity,” he pointed out. Dr. Schwartz, who recently completed a survey mission in the Near East, declared that a very urgent deadline confronted the United Jewish Appeal in the rescue of the Jews of Iraq. By decree of the Iraq Parliament, Jews desiring to go to Israel must leave that country before March, 1951, or not at all,” he added.
A resolution adopted today paid tribute to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., now recuperating from an illness, for his exemplary leadership. Another resolution assured President Weizmann that American Jewry would measure up to its resonsibilities.
American Jewish women contributed a record total of $66,000,000 since 1946 for the humanitarian rescue and reconstruction programs of the United Jewish Appeal, it was revealed at the conference.
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