A hundred thousand Jewish refugees and emigrants have found shelter from Nazi persecution in the past welve months, Abraham Herman, president of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), reported at the organization’s fifty-fifth annual convention today at the Hotel Astor.
They found shelter in the United States, Central and South America, the Far East, Palestine and British territories with the help of the HIAS-ICA worldwide service, Herman said. Latin-American countries alone absorbed 30,000 refugees during the twelve month, Executive Director Isaac L. Asofsky pointed out, while interest in the United States was demonstrated by the fact that 473,600 American relatives or friends of actual or prospective refugees or migrants called on the HIAS for aid in arranging migration.
A $1,000,000 independent fund-raising drive to meet the HIAS “rescue through emigration” budget for this year was announced by Herman. Besides approving this budget, the 2,500 delegates representing 850 organizations adopted a resolution protesting against the brutalities of the Nazis’ forced emigration policy.
The current “epidemic of anti-alien bills in Congress” drew the fire of Representative Bruce Barton, of New York, addressing the convention. The delegates loudly applauded Barton’s warning that “any nation that be beings attacking minorities is beginning to destroy its democracy,” and that “any political party in this country that lets itself get stamped with an anti-alien impress is on its way to destruction.”
General Sessions Judge Jonah J. Goldstein was elected a member of the society’s board of directors. The convention paid tribute to Harry Fischel, New York builder and philanthropist, on his completion of half a century as treasurer of the HIAS.
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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.
