100,000 Jews Left Algeria for France in Four Months, Leavitt Reports

More than 100,000 Jewish refugees from Algeria arrived in France during a four-month period this year, it was revealed today in a report by Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee.

Mr. Leavitt will submit his report to 400 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the United States at the 48th annual meeting of the JDC to be held here tomorrow. The meeting will review JDC’s activities during the past year and will adopt a program of relief and rehabilitation to aid 340,000 needy overseas Jews in 1963.

“Of 600,000 Europeans who arrived from Algeria in France as ‘repatriates’ during a four month period, one of every six was a Jew,” Mr. Leavitt emphasized in his report. “At the same time, thousands of other Jewish refugees made their way to France–from Tunisia and other parts of North Africa, from Eastern Europe and other areas. Suddenly the French Jewish community found that it had grown to more than 500,000–the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by the United States, the Soviet Union and Israel.

“Had JDC and French Jewish welfare agencies had to meet all of the needs of the Algerian Jewish refugees, JDC’s entire income for the year could not have prevented desperate hardship and suffering,” Mr. Leavitt pointed out. “Fortunately, those from Algeria were largely French citizens, entitled to special benefits and grants from the French Government, and requiring only supplemental aid from the voluntary agencies. The neediest, therefore, were the other refugees, many of those from Tunisia, for example, some of whom were permitted to leave with only one dinar ($2.50) per person.

“Even so, JDC was faced with an agonizing dilemma: every dollar diverted to meet the needs of Jewish refugees in France meant the withholding of vitally needed aid in other areas–in Moslem countries, where Arab nationalism and worsening economic conditions spell increased hardship for hundreds of thousands of Jews; in Western Europe, where those whom JDC is assisting are often the sick, the aged and the helpless; in Poland, where half the country’s Jews receive JDC aid; in Israel, where thousands of aged, ill and handicapped newcomers are under the care of Malben, the JDC welfare program in the Jewish State.”

266,000 JEWS AIDED BY J. D.C. IN VARIOUS LANDS DURING 1962

He reported also that preliminary figures indicated that almost 266,000 men, women and children received aid under individual country programs, 96,000 of them in Moslem areas, more than 84,000 in 13 European countries and some 81,000 in Israel. The aid included cash relief for 43, 435 persons, food for 89,625, medical aid to 37,735, aid to 2,650 in homes for children and to 5,510 in homes for the aged, to schools with 56,005 students and to cultural and religious programs serving 39,275.

During the first six months of 1962, he reported, 38 JDC-sponsored credit funds in Europe, South America, North Africa, Australia, and Israel made more than 3,000 loans, totaling nearly $1,850,000. He said 14 of the credit funds were sponsored jointly with the Jewish Colonization Association and that, from the start of the loan program last June 30,88,864 loans totaling $30,182,385 were made.

He listed more than 23,000 children and youth as spending vacations in summer camps sponsored by local Jewish organizations with financial and technical JDC help. During the first half of 1962, he added, more than 9,300,000 pounds of food was given by the United States to JDC as part of its Food-for-Peace program. This food was given to more than 140,000 persons a month in France, Greece, Iran, Israel, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Yugoslavia.

80,945 JEWS HELPED IN ISRAEL DURING YEAR; MALBEN AID CITED

Mr. Leavitt disclosed that during 1962, the JDC helped 80,945 Jews in Israel, including 47,480 helped by JDC-Malben, the welfare program for aged, ill and handicapped newcomers. Malben continued to implement during 1962 a policy shifting emphasis from institutional care of the aged to extra-mural care, with priority in institutions to bedridden cases. As a result, Malben’s institutional caseload dropped from 5,475 at the start of the year to 5,098 in September.

Malben’s largest institutional caseload on September I was 3,165 persons in homes for the well-aged, a decline of 226 since the start of the year. Freed beds are being used for the care of the infirm with 943 persons in institutions for the infirm on September 1. Mr. Leavitt also noted that a monthly averaged of more than 13,000 older persons received grants from a fund set up by the Welfare Ministry, the municipalities, the Jewish Agency and Malben. Aid was given 280 aged persons living independently.

In addition, Malben took part in a wide range of welfare and medical projects in cooperation with the general community, including subsidies for medical services in hospitals, funds and equipment for hospitals, rehabilitation of tuberculosis patients, chest clinics, summer camps for children with cerebral palsy and polio and programs for blind and retarded children–with a total of nearly 500 beneficiaries. The JDC continued during 1962 its long-standing support for a variety of cultural and religious program in Israel, with a total of 18,465 beneficiaries. During the 1961-62 school year, seven new institutions were added to JDC-supported yeshivas, bringing the total to 102.