President Truman was today urged to expedite the granting of a second $100,000,000 loan by the U.S. Export-Import Bank to Israel to enable the Jewish state to absorb the constant stream of new immigrants. The plea was made in a resolution adopted by some 600 delegates to a national conference here of the American Trade Union Council of the National Committee for Labor Israel.
The resolution pointed out that the first American loan is almost exhausted, while immigration to the Jewish state continues undiminished. A second resolution recorded the body’s opposition to any proposal for the internationalization of Jerusalem as a whole. The delegates pledged full support to the Histadrut fund-raising campaign and set a goal of $2,000,000 for itself during the 1950-51 campaign. The council raised $3,000,000 for the Histadrut in the last three years.
The delegates, representing A.F.L., C.I.O. and independent unions, heard Aba Chusi, member of the Israel Knesset and secretary of the Haifa Labor Council, report on Israel’s four-year plan to absorb 750,000 to 800,000 new immigrants. The Histadrut leader said the plan calls for the construction of 300,000 housing units and 480 settlements. Its cost, he said, is estimated at some 500,000,000 pounds ($1,400,000,000). He reported on the Histadrut’s role in the abserption of new immigrants, including its widespread vocational training program.
Federal Security Administrator Oscar R. Ewing, who recently visited Israel, told the conference that Israel will not “go along with the Moscow line” because of the very nature of the Jewish state’s national ideology. Mr. Ewing, who commended the Histadrut for withdrawing from the “Communist-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions,” added that “in America, our citizens of the Jewish faith have contributed vastly to our industry, our professions, our culture, and our civilization–and their contribution has helped create the liberal society which flourishes here, despite the rantings of certain Senators and certain newspapers which should know better.”
Another speaker at the conference, Joseph Schlossberg, general chairman of the National Committee for Labor Israel, declared that the recent tri-partite announcement on Near East arms policy was so far only a “paper decision.” He suggested the constitution of a Middle East regional organization, embracing the Arab states and Israel and assured of adequate guarantees by the U.S., Britain and France. Other speakers at the convention included Jacob Potofsky, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; U.S. Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization Watson B. Miller; and Louis Hollander, president of the New York State C.I.O. Council.
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.
