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U.J.A. Delegation Visits Israel Transit Camps, Meets with New Immigrants

November 5, 1958
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The 100-member United Jewish Appeal delegation currently visiting Israel received today a thorough-going orientation on Israel’s two main problems: immigration and housing. Beginning a five-day tour of the country, the delegates visited the port of Haifa, where immigrants first make contact with Israel, and a transit camp where they spend weeks, months or years before being moved to permanent homes.

Grim canvas structures, blackening wooden huts and dozens of “hard-core”–unemployable or disabled–immigrants greeted the visitors today at Mahne Israel Camp which is under the direction of Malben, the Joint Distribution Committee welfare program in this country. Later, the delegates met residents of David Camp, named for the late Col. David (Mickey) Marcus, who heatedly pointed out the disadvantages of living in such a camp. One exclaimed: “Seven years in such dwellings is long enough.”

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