One out of every six persons in Israel lives in a tent or flimsy hut, Jack D. Weiler said here today on his return from Israel to assume chairmanship of the United Jewish Appeal’s emergency cash drive for $35,000,000. He said that 250,000 immigrants in Israel remain without housing and stressed that “only with cash can the tents and shacks be pulled down and permanent houses built.”
Mr. Weiler, who spent a month in a survey of conditions in Israel, warned that “unless American Jews give to the UJA the funds it has asked for, Israel’s transition to economic independence may be dead-ended and its bright hopes for the future thwarted.” He stressed Israel’s acute shortage of dollar exchange.
The UJA leader, who was joined in Israel by Moritz M. Gottlieb, UJA national chairman for regions, and Henry C. Bernstein, executive vice-chairman of the UJA of Greater New York, will report on the Israel situation at the 13th anniversary dinner of the New York UJA on Thursday and to 500 communal leaders attending the two-day UJA National Leadership Conference at Washington October 18-19.
Mr. Weiler, who also visited Joint Distribution Committee installations in Europe and North Africa, said that 160,000 needy Jews in these areas still require assistance from programs financed through the UJA.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
