The influx of over 100,000 Algerian Jews into this country has posed the most grave problems of care, relief and survival faced by French Jewry in modern times, the Jewish community of this country was warned here today.
The warning came at the conclusion of a two-day conference in this city summoned by Fonds Social Juif Unifie, the major French Jewish welfare organization, called specifically for the purpose of evaluating the problem, analyzing its implications and planning for concrete actions on the part of the Jews of France.
More than 30 French Jewish local and provincial organizations and institutions were represented at the parley by 160 delegates. This was the first all-France meeting of the kind in modern times, and was considered evidence of the deep impact made upon the Jewish community in this country by the mass immigration from Algeria. The delegates represented all French Jewish religious, cultural and political trends.
A picture of what has already been done, and proposals for further speedy action by the French Jewish community, were detailed by E. Kaufmann, the FSJU’s, special representative for North African Affairs. While the general, heavy Algerian immigration to France increased the overall French population by one percent, he said, the Jewish population in this country has swelled by 14 percent as a result of the arrivals from Algeria.
“Since the North African migration started,” he told the delegates, “first as a trickle, then as a tidal wave, the FSJU has set up local committees and liaison offices to deal with the problems at the ports and at the airports where the refugees came.” He reported that the arrivals numbered over 100,000 in the last year. Forty percent of them came to Paris, 30 percent live in Marseilles, “overwhelming the facilities” in both centers,” he said.
Other refugees, he reported, have settled in other French cities and provincial centers “where virtually no Jewish communities existed previously.” Among the prime problems has been the provision of care and facilities for hundreds of Jewish children who arrived in this country without their parents.
DELEGATES FROM PROVINCIAL CITIES REPORT ON NEED OF AID
City-by-city reports given by the delegates showed how the Algerian situation has affected the French Jewish scene. A delegate from Marseilles reported that on some of the ships that arrived at Marseilles, up to 20 percent of the refugees were Jews. The Jewish community, he said, had to do what it could for the Jewish refugees, finding it most urgent to help especially those who were in dire need.
A delegate from Strassbourg painted a similar picture of need and urgency. Some of the Jewish refugees from Algeria, he said, were from districts in the Sahara who found it particularly difficult to adjust to a new life. At least 200 were children separated from their parents. These were taken in by Jewish families in Strassbourg, and are now enrolled in special classes, being prepared for regular schooling.
In some instances, the surge of Jewish refugees from Algeria into very small Jewish communities in France served, paradoxically, to inject fresh life and new vitality to those isolated communities, But, as a whole, the “situation is most serious,” the delegates were told by J. Samuel, director of the FSJU.
Mr. Samuel chided some of the French Jews who, he stated, did not rise to the situation. “Although 100,000 Algerian Jewish refugees arrived here,” he declared, “less than 10,000 French Jews found sufficient generosity and solidarity to really open their hearts.”
“We need concrete plans,” he asserted, “we need solid measures to settle the tens of thousands of Algerian Jewish refugees who need our help despite Government assistance. Much remains to be done. Many still live in particularly tragic and difficult conditions.”
The main problems needing immediate action, he said, concern “first, the aged, on whose behalf a special responsibility falls upon the entire Jewish community; secondly, the children who have been separated from their families; third, concrete, long-term planning for the integration of the Jewish refugees into the Jewish community; fourth, housing.
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.
