A resolution expressing the “confident hope” that President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower “will lead our country with courage and wisdom” and hailing President Truman for his “sympathetic understanding of the aspirations of the Jewish people” and for his friendship to Israel, was adopted here today at the five-day convention of the American Mizrachi Organization.
Dr. Pinkhos Churgin, president of the organization, asked in his presidential report for the immediate resumption of mass immigration to Israel. He asserted that many thousands of Jews are waiting in “lands of insecurity and danger” and insisted that the movement of these people is a “problem whose solution dare not wait.” Placing responsibility for the slowdown of immigration to Israel on financial difficulties, Dr. Churgin urged that “the concentrated will, the unlimited endeavor of Jews in and out of Israel make possible the resumption of mass immigration.”
The Mizrachi leader accused the Israeli Government of “meddling” in matters of secondary importance and there by creating “much bitterness and vexation.” Referring specifically to the attempt to revise the educational system in Israel, he said the government should have avoided disputes “obviously inspired by party considerations.”
He also expressed regret over the fact that the religious parties in Israel were frequently at loggerheads, stating that it was a “tragic phenomenon that religious Jews could not find a unified platform, could not act in unison in last year’s elections.”
MIZRACHI WOMEN ADOPT $1,105,000 BUDGET FOR 1953
The Mizrachi Women’s Organization, concluded its three-day convention here last night with the adoption of a $1,105,000 budget for 1953 and the re-election of Mrs. Joshua L. Lewis as president. The budget includes: $535,000 for academic, vocational, agricultural and religious training for immigrant and native children in Israel; $160,000 for social service to recent immigrants in Israel; $200,000 for reclamation of a tract of land in the Huleh section of Israel, and $210,000 for equipment and supplies for Israel and cultural and educational work among Jewish youth in the United States.
The convention bitterly attacked the McCarran Immigration and Internal Security Acts and called for the abolition of both. It appealed to the United States to bring about an Arab-Israel peace. The Israel Government was urged by the convention “to evolve a workable policy to encourage Jews from English-speaking countries to go to Israel to study with the ultimate goal of forming a nuclei of settlements.”
The convention also urged the improvement of “conditions of immigration for members of the middle class,” so that prospective English-speaking middle class immigrants are attracted to Israel. It pledged its members would buy $1,000,000 worth of Israel bonds during the next year in honor of the late President Chaim Weizmann of Israel.
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