Palestine Jewish Council Draws Attention of U.S. to Position of North African Jews

The marked differences between the position of the Jews in Tripolitania, liberated by the British, and in the French North African possessions occupied by the American forces were cited today in a memorandum submitted to U.S. Consul-General Lowell C. Pinkerton here by the Jewish National Council of Palestine.

The memorandum points out that while the British authorities, after occupying Tripolitania, promptly released the Jews from Axis concentration camps and ghettos and took immediate measures to abolish the anti-Jewish laws, almost nothing has been done as yet to release the Jews in French North Africa from the concentration camps in Morocco and Algeria as well as from forced labor comps in the Sahara desert.

At the same time the Council delivered a memorandum to the Palestine Government taking exception to the recent official statement which warned against the use of violence in inducing residents of Palestine to enlist in the armed forces. The statement is interpreted by Jewish leaders as "intending to detract from the purity of Jewish voluntary enlistment."

Addressing a press conference today on the subject of the Government statement, Isaac Bon-Zvi, president of the Council, which is the representative body of Palestine Jews, said that the Council was first to condemn hooliganism and violence, but certain passages in the Government communique have provoked a feeling of embitterment among Jews in Palestine because "they create the impression that Jewish enlistment is carried out under pressure, whereas actually it is inspired by a sincere desire to participate in the war of the world democracies against Hitler and to honorably defend the Jewish homeland."