OVERSEAS
By LOIS HACKETT TH. Canodlon J.wl.l. N.w«, r,Uor, Moreh J«d. 1962^ $«ctloW M, ra««
IT'S 1945 AU OVER AGAIII
PARIS ■— With more than 6,000 Tunisian lews reaching France since the Bizerte fitting in July, Paris Jewish social service agencies are swamped. And, as always in time of emergency, they've turned to the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) for help.
♦*It's like 1945 aU over again," saiy the harassed^en who run the local Jewish welfare agencies, canteens, youth services, schools, clinics, etc. "And it's growing — Algerians arc coming out in greater numbers, too, especially since the terrorist attacks have mounted in Algiers and Oran."
The bulletins come flooding in:
* JDC Office for France: "$175,000 already allocated for refugee housing fund; much more needed."
* Emergency Reception Center (set up by FSJU, central French • Jewish fund-raising organization): "200 new North African families a month ask aid in getting jobs, housing, residence permits".
* CBIP (family welfare agency): "New cases up from 40 a month to 361 (in-vohing over 1,000 people). $9,000 needed for clothing alone."
* Foyer Amlcal (refugee canteen): Over 1,000 kosher meals served daily, a 50 per cent increase since August."
* SSJ (youth senice agency): "Scholarship funds exhausted. 115 Tunisian students stranded in Paris; no more money from home."
Every day the appeals come to JDC, faced with the impossible job of meeting the needs with the limited funds available from the United Jewish Appeal.
Visit the canteen, the reception center, the OSE clinic and you see that the majority of the Tunisian newcomers are neatly-dressed "white collar" types, plus specialized workers like tailors, hairdressers, etc They don't look like one's idea of refugees, although their faces show the strain df their uncertainty and anxiety about what's going to happen to them.
There are poorer refugees, of course, but most are middle class people who were in fairly comfortable circumstances before they left Tunisia, and were able to dig up enough money to pay fortheir travel expenses to France. They used to have jobs with French firms as insurance clerks, bank tellers, salesmen, bookkeepers.
But the jobs are gone — going, due to new laws that seek to nationalize business and the professions. These will have the effect of stringently restricting employment possibilities for all Eu* ropeans, non-Jews as well as Jews. "Tout est fini," they say. "The Jews are finished in Tunisia.''
Contributing to their anxiety has been the fluidity of the situation vis-a-ris the Tu-
The assistoiice described in this story is largely subsidized by the Joint Distribution Committee with funds provMeid by the UJ.A. In Toronto, these funds are provided from money raised in the United Jewish Appeoi Annuol Compaign.
nisian and French governments. They may or may not have had trouble getting passports. This is not particularly becatise they are Jewish. But, especially in the first weeks in August, the rules changed from day to day. Even late in September people were still standing in line all night at the French consulates in Tunisia, only to be told in the morning that no application forms were being given out. Administrative services just couldn't handle the thousands of applicants flooding their offices. Even now the passport situation in Timisia remains confused,
Poor or well-to-do, frightened or confident, they come off the boat at Marseilles empty-banded. They are permitted to take out of Tunisia only one dinar ($2.50), 88 pounds of luggage and their railway tickets to Paris.
What Happens To Them?
Efforts have been made to sort them out and send them elsewhere and a number do stay in Marseilles or go to smaller French cities — but, for most,. the bright lights of Paris are like a flame to a moth. Over the last ten years, thousands of North African Jews have already come here to live. This means that the newcomers will generally find relatives and friends to take them in and help them find work and lodgings.
Paris is booming and clerical work is not hard to find. Speaking French, as they do, they have no language problem. Getting the necessary papers is time-consuming but not impossible. What they don't anticipate is life in a climate where winter brings fog and dampness and cold and sharp winds. Or how high prices are in Paris. Or how acute the housing shortage is. Or what it will mean to their families tg> live for month after month jammed into a small shabby hotel room in a working-class quarter like the Montmartre, or doubled up with relatives — 15 to 20 people in two rooms — with the children coming down with runny noses from sleeping on blankets on the floor, and the women's nerves rubbed raw from noise, confusion, too little money and top much 'togetherness."
Newcomers Swamp Jewish Services
A tour of the local Jewish seni'ice agencies takes you all over Paris — into sections which don't see many tourists. There is, nothing fancy about their quarters. jFo^ the jnQSi-^iart they are
located in dark cramped offices with makeshift partitions in high-ceilinged old buildings, with here and
there a trace of fonner grandeur in a marble fireplace, high carved lintels or a sweeping stone staircase that boats faded red carpeting.
Oldest Relief Agency The CBIP
Locat<='d~on a steep street in the Montmartre, alinost in the shadow of the \vRite dome of Sacre Coeur, the CBIP (Comite de Bienfalsan-ce Israelite de Paris) is one of the oldest Jewish institutions in Paris, having been in existence for a century and a half. The great majority of Tunisian families who have turned to CBIP for help are those with Timisian, as distinct from French nationality, said Mr. Emerik Kohn, the director. French nationals have no particular difficvdty getting piermanent permits and jobs and, like all French citizens, are entitled to many form of public assistance, including cash relief, medical care, housing, etc.
About half of the newcomers have Tunisian nationality, however, and of these 75 per cent have no funds whatsoever. They enter France with short term visitors' visas. These, after more or less delay and many visits to minor city officials, are convertible into temporary residence permits which, im-der an arrangement made between France and Tunisia some years ago, allow the holders to get jobs if they can find them. However, in many cases the French Je^y-ish community has had tb give guarantees that the newcomer would not become dependent on the state. Also, during the time — from one to three months — while they are establishing themselves, they have to tiuTi for help to the CBIP.
Many of the families stay with relatives, so they don't have the expense of hotel bills, but still need cash relief for food and incidentals as well as blankets and clothing. To tide them over imtil they find work and a place to live, CBIP is currently overspending its budget by $4,000 a month, Mr. Kohn said. Most of them come as family groups, but there are also a large number of cases where either the head of the family comes alone to prepare the way, or young people come as students. Thus there were 120 demands this fall for 25 places available in the youth hostel that CBIP runs, he stated.
In addition to newly-arrived Tunisian families, whose number has jumped from a average of 10 in the first six months of 1961 to over 200 a month, the niunber of new Algerian and Moroccan refugees has also seriously increased, Mr. Kohn said. A-
mong the new Algerian cases he spoke of two widows whose husbands were killed by the terrorists. The Algerians and Moroccans tend to be niuch more primitive than the Tunisians and the women, in particular, need orientation in urban ways of living. * _
He also was concerned about his staff of social workers, he said. With their caseloads up to 250 families each, they are so overwork-, ed they are fallmg ill. Two are out with long-term illnesses, which makes it that much harder for the remaining six.
Accompanied by Mm. T —, a voltmteer aide who original ly came from Tunis herself, we visited one of the families on the CBIP caseload. They were staying with the husband's brother's family in a two-room flat in the St. Antoine quarter. It was approached through a cobble-stoned courtyiard strung with washing, with an outside privy and water running down the middle. Mme. T — told us that all the children of the family who formerly lived there had had to go to a TB sanitarium.
Twenty-two people were living in the two small dark damp ground-floor rooms, which had electricity and running water but no heat. In one room there was a gas stove, a sink, a kitchen table and a couple of stools; in the other, one narrow bed and a chest of drawers. Three suitcases were piled against one wall and in one comer there was a pile of blankets. These had been given to the family by the CBIP; at night they were spread out on the floor for the children to sleep on. At the moment the older ones were in school; only the four smallest were on hand.
Mme. S .'T- told me 4hat they left Bizerte on Septemr ber I5th. Her husband had been a kosher butcher but had lost all his clients, lit now had a job as an imskil-led laborer. They had made the roimds of the hotels but no one would take them in because of their seven children; in any case they couldn't haVe cooked their own meals in a hotel. Apart from grumbling a hit about the climate ("Le froid — c'est terrible!"), she and her sister-in-law, who said she had come to Paris five years aigo, seemed in good enough spirits and prepared to stick it out until the newcomers could find a place of their own.
"Wci get along fine together," Mme. S —■ saidi nodding at her sister-in-law. "It's O.K. during the day when the kids tare in school. But when they come home — my God, what a racket!"
Refugee Canteen Jammed
The refugee canteen — the Foyer Amlcal — is bedlam these days. The dining-room is on the second floor and at nudday the stair case leading up to it, and the downstairs foyer are jammed with Jews of all nationalities queueihg up for their meal tickets. Sometimes the line goes out the door and down the dingy street.
About a third of the people are North Africans, with Tunisians predominating. Children aren't much in evi-4ence. They're either at school or their parents take their food back to their hotel rooms because the canteen just cannot accommodate large families.
In spite of the hubbub of 200 people eating elbow to elbow, the dining-room upstairs gives a cheerful impression. The tables are topped with bright yellow plastic. Trundled in on carts by smiling women volim-teers, the kosher food looks good> smells good and you know by the way they dig in that the people are really hungr}'. This is their main meal of the day.
. The spirit of the place is due to one man — a prosperous furrier named Leitkind, originally from Russia, who founded the canteen in 1937. Staying open even through the war, it has been his "baby" ever since. Grabbing a hasty sandwich at the office, he gives up his Itmch hour every day to come and see that "people get a decent meal." His wife and daughter arc among the 40 women volunteers who assist the paid staff.
"We never turn anyone away hungry," he said proudly. "But some days we have to bring out sausages and eggs when the regular meat-4ish runs out''
The canteen, has become such a complicated operation that FSJU had to put on a full time assistant, a man named Chiriqui, to handle the business end. It now ser\'es meals from 10:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., its daily clientele has jumped from 600, as of July, to over 900 and it takes sLx instead of four seatings to take care of them
Food costs are up %6fi09 a month, Mr. Chiriqui told us. "With so many new North Africans, we also put 'couscous' on the menu occasionally — the Poles and Central Europeans don't like it much but to the Tunisians it tastes like home."
He added that the clientele is now all "new" refugees. "Before, we were feeding some social cases as well as 'settled' North Africans. But we've had to weed them but. We've also started charging for meals -r- two francs (40
HOW YOUR GIFT WAS SPENT IN 1961
The 19iS1 U.J.A, Campaign did not yield the full omount required to fill all local and non-locol needs. Allocations exceeded funds available for distribution by $ 63,000.
EACH two ALLOCATED WAS SPEN^^^
ISRAEL OVERSEAS AMD REFUGEE RELIEF .... $ 54.42
United Israel Appeal United Jewish Relief Agencies
(in conjunction with Joint Distribution Committee)r-VVorld ' ORT Union, Qrgahisatipn S^cbur des Eiifants, Aliiance Waelite Universselle, Ozar Hatorah, United HIAS Service, World JewisivGpngress, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jewish Immigrant Aid Services and Jewish Family and Child Service (relief only), Ezras Torah Fund, Passover Relief v' in Israel;-::,; ■ ' ,'-:.../■ -..-t. .\
CANADIAN JEWISH CONGRESS ...v^....;..;....^ 3.77
BUREAU OF JEWISH EDUCATION 16^75
ServiceJB to 13 non-subsidized affiliatied schools Sendees and subsidy to Associated Hebrew Schools (including BiHms\yick,ShaareiShomayim and North Bathurst Talmud torahs, Beth Bmeth Afternoon School); EitzChaim ■ Schools (including D'Arcy, Bumside and Vlewmount Talmud Torahs): Bais Yehuda Talmud Torsih, Beth Shol^^ Talmud Torah, Borochov Schools, Jewish Naticinal Workers Alliance JSchools, Worl^ Yeshiyah Shlomei
Emunei Israel, Beach Hebrew Institute and l^eth El After-■■\nooxf ■School: ■,\;
JEWISH IMMIGRANrAID SERVICfeS OF CANAD^ . ^ t.32
COMMUNITY, BUILDING FUND .......................... 7.65
North Toronto Branch Y.M. •- Y.W.H.A.. Jewish Home for ~ the Aged, Associated Hebrew Schools, Eitz Chaim Schools, Jewish Community Services Building -
EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL AND -
RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS....................................................... 3.03
incjuding Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University; Cana-- dian Technion Society, Weimann Institute of Science, Ganadiari Friends of the Bar-Ilan University, AmericaJsrael Cultural Foundation and 15 others
SOCIAL PLANNING, COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION AND COORDINATION ...........
B'NAI B'RITH HILLEL FOUNDATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
JEWISH PUBLIC LIBRARY ....
MISCELLANEOUS LOCAL NEEDS AND SERVICES .......
CAMPAIGN ADMINISTRATION AND EXPENSES ...........
BANK LOAN INTEREST ..
:5.09
.74 .47 1.11 5.06 59
Total .....$ 100.00
cents) for employed people; one franc for people on relief. A lot of them have passes from the CBIP or COJA-SOR (the other major Jewish welfare agency), who pay us back half a franc a meal."
One out of three of the new refugees fed at the canteen are North Africans. Tj-pical is Mm. Z — from Tunis, a plump dark-haired woman in her late thirties with three cliildren, aged 10 to 16. They fled Tunis precipitately after Bizerte, she said, 'leaving everything behind — the cafe she ran with her husband and the jewelry shop in which he had a partner-, ship. They could find np buyers for either.
More fortunate than many, the Z — family is already well on its way to resettlement. Through the help of friends, Mr. Z — has found a place in the Galerie Lafayette,' their son is enrolled in the ORT school in Mon-treuil, and their older daughter has started to work in a beauty parlor. Mm. Z — thinks they will be all right after they find a place to live and they have been desperately hunting an apartment, so far with no luck. In the meantime, they have to live in a hotel — all five of them in one room — and even with two wages coming in there is not enough to meet their living expenses. The CBIP is helping pay their hotel bills, using emergency , funds it has-rfeceived from JDC for such cases.
An increasing number of students ore preporing themselves for careers in Jewish studies ot Jewish Institutes of higher learning.
CULTURAL INSTrrUTIONS
Today more then ever before young Jews of talent and intelligence are seeking careers in Jewish studies. Jewish continuity must be fed by a constant stream of
fresh thought and new leaders from the higher institutions of learning. Jewish culture can grow and flourish in our society.
Much remoins to be done to eliminate the shameful conditions of the tern-porary immigrant camps in Israel.
UNITED ISRAEL APPEAL
A million came and more are coming — but Israel takes them all - the aged and infirm as well as the young
and vigorous, the skilled and unskilled alike. In the fast developing land of Israel a place must be found
for everyone.
Immigration to Israel doubled in 1961 and will go higher this year.
Roumanion immigrants arriving by olr in IsratI