United Jewish Appeal Agencies Spent $33,000,000 in First Four Months of Year

The agencies affiliated with the United Jewish Appeal campaign this year have spent $33,000,000 in the first four months of 1946, it was announced here yesterday at a meeting of the U.J.A. national campaign executive committee.

This sum is exactly one-third of the total campaign goal for the year and has been spent in the first third of the year. The larger share, over $17,000,000, was expended by the Joint Distribution Committee for relief and rehabilitation needs in Europe, Shanghai, North Africa, and various Middle East countries. The United Palestine Appeal has spent more than $15,000,000 for improving settlements in Palestine and in acquiring new land.

Addressing 750 delegates of leading American Jewish communities at an extraordinary national convention at the Standard Club here James G. McDonald, a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, urged the greatest haste in carrying out the committee’s recommendation that 100,000 displaced Jews be transported from Europe to Palestine. He stated that the admission of these Dp’s to Palestine and removal of land purchase restrictions could be accomplished “without injury to the legitimate interests of the Arab people in Palestine,” and added that if the British and American Governments are “deeply concerned” the opposition of the Arab world would not be strong enough to deter them from achieving this objective.

Edward M.M. Warburg, chairman of the J.D.C., told the delegates that the European governments have an obligation to the 1,300,000 Jews who will remain in Europe if the British and American Governments effect the transfer of 100,000 displaced Jews. That obligation, he said, is “to speed their reinstatement into normal life, making proper compensation for the terrible disabilities they suffered at the hands of the Nazis.” Rudolf G. Sonneborn, national chairman of the U.P.A., urged that UNRRA extend the aid given displaced persons in Europe to homeless Jews reaching Palestine during the first stages of their resettlement there.