F t
"4k -
concuss FEB y1950
The Canadian English-Jewish Weekly
VOL
MONTREAL, FEBRUARY 17, 1950
No. 20
J.D.G To Assume Greatly �Expanded Relief Work For jews In Moslem World
Si
1
Responsible overseas officials of the Joint Distribution Committee expressed the view in Paris that the plight of the Jews in the Moslem world was so generally bad that no private philanthropy, whatever its budget, could hope to solve all the housing, public health, personal hygiene and educational problems involved. They indicated, however, that the Committee was attempting to "point the way" by means of pilot projects in the countries where it was allowed to operate, notably in Morocco, Tunisia, Tripolitania, and Iran, says the New York Times.
These officials said that the agency was mainly concerned with assistance to "children and young people, the sick and diseased," Already, they declaredi the child-care programs in schools had introduced new standards of health and happiness. They expressed the conviction that the Jews of the Moslem world constituted "a vast reservoir of human beings who, given effective help, could make valuable contributions to their own countries or to Israel."
Moses W. Beckelman, European
vice-president, estimated that the Committee, which pays for roughly 90 per cent of all Jewish emigration to Israel, would this year assume emigration costs for 80,000 Jews from the Moslem world. Jews from these areas, he said, have accounted for some 40 per cent of all immigration to Israel in 1949, a figure that was expected to jump to 66Vper cent in 1950.
"Pressures to emigrate have been especially strong among the Jews of Tripolitania," Mr. Beckelman reported. "In response to urgent requests, the Committee recently helped evacuate the entire Jewish population of Cyrenaica� some 6,000 persons � to Tripoli, where they are awaiting passage to Israel."
He declared that of 863,000 indigenous Jew� in Moslem countries from Morocco to Pakistan, an estimated 80 per cent were living in sub-human conditions. "In the ghettos of the major cities of North Africa," he said "it is not unusual to find families of eight to ten sharing one small, lightless, airless room. Hunger and disease (Continued on Page Eleven)
C%ustom Tailors
for Men and Women 372 ST. CATHERINE STREET WEST
ROOM 527, MLOO Bf.DC
."telephone LAncaster 9960
<m   M �      t I �    Mama   mm   � � ��- - - * |>     A    ..     ..
i rwnsm%j nm m vmry tmwt miw w. umiw
es INC
THE HOME OF FUSE
ANTIQUE and MODERN FURNITURE
China, Silver, Glass and other works of Art
YOUR INSPECTION INVITED
442 SHERiROOKE ST. WEST Telephone: HA. 0251-2
No finer salmon in  all  the  world!
This  famoas Pacific Ocean seafood conies in Hirtt varieties :
�  FANCY RED SOCK EYE �  FANCY RED COHOE
�  FANCY PINK Ask for rhem at your grocers
CLOVER LEAF SALMON
fC-
LINOLEUM
Conodian, English and American . . . LARGE VARIETY OF COLOURS AND PATTERNS
SMART INSTALLATIONS
FAST SERVICE
FRANK ROUND & SON
"Floor Coworiaej Speoofisti"
5336 SWfferooke Strict W�f
DE. 0751
WJC Requests Legal Status For Stateless
Dr. Maurice L. Perlzweig, speaking as the representative of the Vvorld Jewish Congress, pleaded at the United Nations Committee on Statelessness, for bold and generous measures in developing an international juridical status for stateless persons. The Committee has just completed the first draft of an international convention relating to the status of refugees, and it has now been remitted to a subcommittee for redrafting and for recommendations on the applicability to stateless persons who have found asylum in various lands and whose status as refugees is therefore in question.
The WJC representative urged specifically that the convention should provide by international, agreement for a substitute for the consular services now denied to stateless persons, and he also asked that the governments should undertake through the convention to facilitate naturalization by dropping some of the onerous conditions which now made it virtually impossible. He emphasized particularly the need for abandoning all regulations which required de facto stateless persons to obtain official documents from the governments of countries which they had abandoned. This practice, he said, was in the circumstances peculiarly cruel and humiliating, and its existence in relation to official acta, such as naturalization, often meant in practice that the refugee was wholly and permanently deprived of the right of a legal status. This result had not been intended when these regulations were instituted, but it was within the power of the governments concerned to abandon them without difficulty, and this proposal Bhould be embodied in the convention. '
?Zha Uftiveraal Declaration of Human Rights," said Dr. Perlzweig, "laid it down that everyone has a right to a nationality. If a nationality is a right,, then statelessness can be described as a curse. We ask the United Nations through the committee to do what is now possible to lift at least some of the burdens of this curse."
Dr. Perlzweig, paying a tribute to the International Refugee Organization, said that it had a great achievement to its credit Within the limits of its resources and powers, it had helped to find homes for hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees and had made an historic contribution to the solution of the refugee problems. But the IRO had only a few months left in which to function before it was succeeded by the new UN High Commission for Refugees. It was important that the procedures proposed in the convention should be in effect as soon as possible after the appointment of the High Commissioner. He therefore proposed that the Committee of Statelessness should recommend the early calling of special diplomatic conferences to adopt the text of a convention. To await the next meeting of the UN Assembly, which might well do no more then follow the precedent of summoning an International conference, would entail serious delay. The gravity of the refugee problems called for immediate action.
Cold Brings Hardship To Camp Dwellers
During the unprecedented snow storms and sub-zero weather in Israel, camp doctors and nurses closed their dispensaries and went from tent to tent examining the inhabitants and taking babies to children's houses, which were in solid buildings. Many mothers, particularly those from the Orient, resisted, and some hid their children. Six thousand city families had offered to take in refugee children through the winter months, but most mothers had declined to part with their children.
The storm came at a time when hospital facilities in Israel's immigrant transit camps were so inadequate, according to hospital authorities, that sick children qualified for beds only when they were --covering between life and death, reports the New York Times.
The situation took a turn for the 4 worse during the last few monthB, when tens of thousands of refugees were brought to Israel from Yemen, the kingdom near the southern end of the Red Sea. These persons weighed so little that the chartered United States planes that flew them to Israel carried four times the normal number of passengers without exceeding the maximum payload allowed.
Thirteen thousand of these persons are living in the former British army camp at Ras el Ain. Ninety per cent of the children and 40 per cent of the adults are stricken with malaria, which is as much part of the Yemenite background as malnutrition. Between 80 and 90 per cent suffer from trachoma, 40 per cent have tropical ulcers and an equal number have ringworm. Virtually all the children are anemic* while 15 to 20 per cent have rickets.
Into this situation stepped Ha-jiaaun, the medical aad social service organization stpported *>y 800)000 Jewish women in the United States and Canada and directed by their representatives in Israel. Hadassah had been setting the pattern for health services in Palestine since the Balfour Declaration.
During the period between the British declaration in 1917 for the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine and the inauguration of the civil administration (Continued on Page Eleven)
SAYS MAINTENANCE OF IMMIGRANTS COSTS $4,000,000 MONTHLY
Parties Compete For Hold On Young
Three Orthodox representatives in the Cabinet boycotted a meeting and indicated that they would continue to stay away until the Israeli Government assured religious education for all Orthodox children in immigrant transit camps. The religious parties want control over the education of immigrants from Yemen, Lybia and Morocco, the overwhelming majority of whom are devout. These parties asserted that irreligious camp officials threatened and coerced religious parents into enrolling their children in non-religious schools.
This was the issue that moved the protest to Premier David Ben-Gurlon by eleven American national rabbinical and religious organizations and elicited a rebuke from the Premier, who said non-Israelis had no business pressuring the government- The problem stems from the fsct that the Government recognizes four separate school systems, each of which is sponsored by different political interest*. ?The law permits parents to select their school system. Competition between the parties for enroThaent of the children is keen. (CemUmmed en ?*#� Twelve)
The Israeli Government is compelled to use funds needed for defense purposes to take care of the newly arrived refugees, Henry Morgenthau Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury, said in New York at a testimonial dinner given in his honor by the National Automotive Division of the United Jewish Appeal at the Commodore Hotel.
Mr. Morgenthau, wh6 is general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, returned from a trip to Israel. In describing that country's urgent needs he warned the 400 business men present that if the United Jewish Appeal was not supported, the defense structure in Israel would be undermined.
"In recent months the Jewish Agency for Palestine has not received adequate funds from the UJA to care for the 85,000 immigrants still in tents and to receive the thousands of others who are still coming into the country," he said.   "As a result, the Govern-
ment of Israel has been compelled to use funds urgently needed for defense purposes, to feed, clothe and shelter the newly arrived refugees."
Mr. Morgenthau noted that none of the money raised by the United "Jewish Appeal goes for any security or defense purposes in Israel, according to the New York Times. He said it costs at least $4,000,000 a month to maintain the immigrants in the Israel reception camps, and that this sum does uo more than "keep them there."
In the last six months, 41,000 Jews were transferred from Yemen into Israel, he added, explaining that almost all of the Jews of Yemen had been rescued from poverty and persecution.
"The problem of maintaining the new immigrants is the key to the economic and social future in Israel. It is a heroic undertaking that the Jewish State has com-(Continued on Page Twelve)
Cabriet <jCi
ucas
Jeweller
The distinctive winner of first prise in Jewellery at Paris
Fine assortment of Wenches by Omega 1476 SHERBROOKE ST. WEST FL 6547
IN ANY EVENT SEND FLOWtAS         �
Fruit Baskets for all Occasions Shiva, bon  voyage, convalescence
VI. 4415
ROWERS TELEGRAPHED EVERYWHERE
4S97 fAKK AVENUE
<C�Mf St. JvMffc tMtvttri)
Outstanding items from the
80th ANNUAL REPORT
A CANADIAN COMPANY FOR CANADIANS
SURPLUS EARNED IN 1949    .......
(Providing premium reduction? through dividends)
6.172,141
TOTAL PAYMENTS TO POLICYHOLDERS AND
BENEFICIARIES IN 1949    ....... $   19,063,436
(Death Claims, Matured Policies, etc.)
NEW ASSURANCES IN 1949......... $ 120,009,172
(Excluding Reassurance Ceded and Annuities)
TOTAL ASSETS............ $ 345.293359
TOTAL ASSURANCES IN FORCE, DEC. 31,1949   .... $1,068,698,193 (Excluding Reassurance Ceded and Annuities)
A copy of the complete report of the proceedings �i the Compmny't awuui meeting, held 1 the Head Office on February 2, 2950, tall be tent on request.
The Mutual Life
Assurance Company OF CANADA
HEAD OFFICE    �    WATERLOO, ONTARIO
LOUIS L. LANG, President
A. L PEQUEGNAT. ajjl, 9AM
X