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World Sephardic Body Seeks U.N. Intervention on Jews in Egypt

January 18, 1957
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An urgent appeal to the United Nations for immediate intervention to halt the persecution of Egyptian Jews was made today by the executive of the World Sephardic Jewish Federation here.

The Federation, which claims to represent 2,000,000 Sephardic Jews, acted on the basis of a special report from two members of its council, David Sitton and Jacob Nizani, who had just returned from a European tour in connection with the Egyptian expulsions. The resolution appealed to the governments of the free world and to public opinion to protest the "deprivation of the civil rights of Egyptian Jews and the illegal confiscation of their properties."

The resolution, which was sent to the United Nations, urged that the Egyptian Government be asked to free interned Jews immediately and that charitable and educational institutions of Egyptian Jewish communities be permitted to resume their activities. The United Nations also was urged to demand of Egypt that Jews who wish to leave be permitted to do so of their own free will and with permission to take with them their belongings and capital.

The Federation also sent resolutions to the Governments of Great Britain, France, Italy and Greece expressing gratitude for their "sympathetic understanding of the plight of Egyptian Jews" and for having accepted a number of them as refugees. The two Sephardi officials predicted that 20,000 to 25, 000 Egyptian Jews would arrive in Israel in the next four months, adding that there were currently 7,000 Egyptian Jews in France and Italy awaiting transport to new homes.

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