Israeli Shortages Slowing Immigrant Settlement, Berinstein Reports

Israel’s critical shortage of housing materials and food supplies has slowed the settlement and absorption of tens of thousands of immigrants at a time when the country is expecting an additional 60,000 newcomers from Rumania, Libya and Iran before the end of the year, Morris W. Berinstein of Syracuse, chairman of the United Jewish Appeal’s national campaign cabinet, said here today.

Returning from Jerusalem where, together with Edward M.M. Warburg, U.J.A. general chairman, Dr. Joseph Schwartz, U.J.A. executive vice-chairman, and other U.J.A. leaders, he conferred with Israel officials and Jewish Agency members on the needs of the immigration and absorption program, Mr. Berinstein stressed that “American Jews have now become the hinge on which the new state can swing out of its present difficulties to record new gains in human and national betterment.” He called for all-out support of the U.J.A.’s urgent campaign for $35,000,000 in cash before the end of 1951.

The failure of American Jews to give that cash to the U.J.A., he warned, “may result in a breakdown not only of Israel’s immigrant absorption program but of efforts to move 60,000 Jews out of Rumania, Iran and Libya by the end of this year.” Successful attainment of the U.J.A. goal, he emphasized, “will help add substantially to Israel’s food supply for immigrants in camps and work villages and thereby afford the general public a greater part of the foodstuffs it now shares with the newcomers.”

Reporting the progress made by Israel’s people in various fields, Mr. Berinstein cited the state’s steady progress in building new roads, settlements, hospitals, factories and public services. He also praised the people’s determination to man their defenses against a ring of hostile neighbors and their sacrifices to receive and absorb over 650,000 in the last three and a half years.