Zionist Congress Hears Report on Jewish Emigration from Communist Lands

Only about 6,000 Jews from countries behind the Iron Curtain came to Israel during the last five years, it was reported here by Dr. Giora Josephthal, Jewish Agency treasurer, addressing the World Zionist Congress. Most of them were aged people who came to join their children, he said.

Dr. Josephthal estimated that there are about 3,000,000 Jews residing today in the Soviet bloc countries. The allocation of permits to emigrate from these countries, he asserted, follows no rule or logic. There must be many thousands of Jews there who are afraid even to apply for permission to emigrate, he said.

“The general, picture of immigration possibilities from the Communist countries,” the Jewish Agency treasurer went on, “remains dark, since one-quarter of our people are unable to reach us, unable to live a free national life. Parents are separated from children and vice versa.” He estimated that there are now between 40,000 to 50,000 families in Israel who still await their relatives.

Reporting on the total immigration into Israel and the absorption of the immigrants in Israel, Dr. Josephthal told the Congress that the Israel Government has cooperated fully with the Jewish Agency in these two major fields of the Agency’s activities. He said that 786,000 Jews were brought into Israel since its establishment as a State. Together with the natural increase, the Jewish population of Israel has grown from 650,000 at the time the state was established to the present figure of 1,600,000–an increase of 250 percent. That figure, however, he noted, represents only one-eighth of the world’s Jewish population.

The reduction in the scale of immigration four years ago, he reported, was a direct result of the economic and sociological difficulties then prevailing in Israel, and the improvement–real or imaginary–in the life of the Diaspora. Only with the renewed threat to the security of the Jews in North Africa, did the wave of immigration begin again, he said. He pointed out that in the period since the last Zionist Congress, 80 percent of all immigrants to Israel came from the countries of North Africa and Asia. In the last two years, he stressed, that figure had reached 90 percent.

DR. JOSEPHTHAL ANALYZES SITUATION OF THE JEWS IN NORTH AFRICA

Referring to the situation in North Africa where, he said, there were over 400,000 Jews, mostly in Morocco, Dr. Josephthal urged his listeners to realize that a tense situation prevailed in those countries and that the Governments of Tunisia and Morocco, which had only recently achieved or were about to achieve their independence, had not evolved any steady or firm policy toward Jews residing there which could be regarded as hostile. He added that no one could understand or appreciate better than the Zionists the striving for national independence in the hearts of others.

One of the greatest achievements he had to report, said the Agency leader, was the new pattern of distribution of population in Israel. Where 70 percent of the population had been concentrated in three cities–Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa–when the State was founded, now only 50 percent of the population of Israel lives in those cities. Furthermore he noted, in the south and in the Negev, there were now 75,000 Jews as compared with 6,000 at that time. Moreover, eleven out of every twelve now living in the Negev are new immigrants.

Another feature he stressed in his report was the comparative youthfulness of Israel’s population, with 40 percent of all Israelis under 19–a more favorable ratio than all of the countries of Europe and America. He attributed this largely to the heavy immigration from Asian and North African countries, noting that 50 percent of immigrants from those countries were under 19. Israel, he said, has twice as many children and youths as England, a hopeful augury for the future and for the existence of the people and the State.

Dr. Josephthal characterized the situation of the health services and education among the new immigrants as progressing in a generally satisfactory manner. He urged the delegates to join in kindling in the hearts of Jewish youth in Western Europe and America a desire to join the builders of Israel, and at the same time to make efforts to help solve their special economic and social needs prior to their emigration.

The executive of the Jewish Agency pointed with pride, Dr. Josephthal went on to say to the fact that 98 percent of the settlement budget had been implemented. Since the last Congress, 401,000,000 pounds have been spent for that purpose, he noted.

But he coupled the pride in what had been accomplished with an expression of regret at what might have been done. If the Jewish people throughout the world had provided an additional $30,000,000 a year, he asserted, there would not be a single maabara (immigrant transit camp) left in the country today. Moreover, he added, all of the settlements would have been consolidated by now, and it is possible that there would be fewer Jews left in Morocco today.