Immigration to Palestine, whether quota or extra-quota, has continued uninterruptedly in the current crisis and is a source of “the greatest satisfaction and encouragement to the Palestine Jewish community,” it was declared today by Israel Mereminsky, general secretary of the Palestine Jewish Labor Federation (Histadruth), upon his arrival from Paris on the United States liner Washington.
Mr. Mereminsky, who is a member of the Zionist General Council and who remained in Europe after the Zionist Congress, is here for a six-month stay during which he will cooperate in all projects designed to further the work of the Histadruth and the Yishub as a whole.
During his stay, Mr. Mereminsky said, he will also endeavor to establish improved contact between the American Jewish community and Palestine during the crisis and to strengthen relations between the two communities.
Commenting on the question of immigration in the course of an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mr. Mereminsky expressed the conviction that the rate and extent of Jewish immigration to the Holy Land depended both “on the means and the efforts that the Yishub itself can put forward to absorb and organize it.”
“And,” he added, “if American Jewry can put forth efforts in behalf of the Yishub commensurate with the efforts of the 100,000 Histadruth members in absorbing the immigrants then Palestine could readily be prepared as a center for the immigration of the Jewish masses.”
Commenting on the war, the labor leader said that the world now had an opportunity to see that the three and a half years of terrorism in Palestine were not the result of Zionist infiltration and activities but were “definitely linked to the efforts of the same totalitarian powers which today are at war with the democratic powers.”
Mr. Mereminsky paid high tribute to the American Federation of Labor and American Jewish labor organizations for their help to the Histadruth in the period of terrorism.
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