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health services found woefully in
adequate in many places were en
larged and reorganized. New
clinics were established to fight
tuberculosis, trachoma and favus.
To help bring down the appalling
infant mortality rate among North
Africa’s Jews, baby clinics were
opened in cities having large Jew
ish populations.
A chief weapon in the J.D.C.’s
fight for improved conditions for
North Africa’s Jews was the school.
In the modern elementary schools
of Alliance Israelite Universelle
(aided mainly by the French gov
ernment, but receiving supple
mentary help from the J.D.C.)
feeding programs were increased
to provide nourishing diets for
children.
Increased support was given to
Ozar Hatorah schools to provide
wider educational opportunities for
increased numbers of children.
Feeding programs were also ex
tended to these schools and physi
cal examinations were initiated.
J.D.C. help, too, made possible
the expansion of ORT vocational
training schools in North Africa.
And as this is being written, a
J.D.C. nursery school is about to
open in Casablanca for 500 children
who would otherwise be forced to
spend their days in the squalid mel-
lahs. In Tunis, 160 little ones are
also receiving daytime care and
nourishing food in a kindergarten
supported and equipped by J.D.C.
A bottleneck in the expansion
of J.D.C.’s program in North Africa
has been the lack of training local
personnel — social workers, pubiic
health nurses and teachers who are
themselves North African Sephar
dim and who know and understand
the local Jews. To help fill this
vital need the Paul Baerwald
School of Social Work, established
by the J.D.C. in Versailles, near
Paris, will open in a few weeks.
The students, all on scholarships,
have been recruited from both
North African and European Jew
ish communities. After a year’s
instruction in modern welfare
techniques, they will return to their
homes and use their new knowl
edge to help others.
Thus Rosh Hashanah 5710 brings
heartening evidence of substantial
recovery for Jews and Jewish com
munities in all parts of a still trou
bled world.
The rapid strides Jews overseas
have made toward a new and better
life should be a source of pride to
the American Jewish community.
As we gather to celebrate the High
Holy days, we can all experience
a quiet satisfaction in the fact that
we have been participants — prime
movers, in fact — in the struggle
to rebuild life and hope for Jews
abroad.
But let us remember, also, that
the task is not yet finished. In
5710 more than 25 per cent of the
some 1,000,000 Jews of continental
Europe will probably need J.D.C.
relief assistance. Almost an equal
number wil look to J.D.C. still for
help in one form or another. Hun
dreds of thousands in North Africa
and the Middle East also will need
varying amounts of help still to
achieve minimum standards of de
cent living. And there will be still
several thousand Jews in Germany,
Austria and Italy whose wish it will
be to find permanent homes in
Israel, the United States and other
lands. Long before next Rosh
Hashanah, all those who wish and
can leave, must be helped to go.
At this moment, in the DP areas
of Europe, the J.D.C. is facing a
difficult, long-term problem—long
term care for aged, handicapped
and chronically ill DP’s, and their
dependents. Assistance to this
‘hard core" group of some 6,000
persons may be a costly J.D.C. re
sponsibility for many years to
come.
The J.D.C. in 5710 must continue,
too, to make a frontal attack upon
homelessness by transporting many
thousands of Jews from Europe and
the Moslem world to Israel and
other lands.
Important, too, will be the
MOSES A. LEAVITT
J.D.C.’s program of economic re
construction through which many
thousands must still be aided to
self-support in 5710. And there
must be no letdown in the fight
to rebuild health, in child care ef
forts, and in educational, religious
and cultural activities. Instead,
these activities, now showing real
dividends as the result of several
years of effort, must be carried for
ward toward desirable goals.
Thus, the men, women and chil
dren we saved from the starvation
and tragedy which was their lot at
the time of Liberation, and cared
for during the intervening years,
must have our continued help dur
ing the Jewish year ahead. In 5710,
the Jews of America and the J.D.C.
will not be required to provide the
huge and unprecedented aid which
we extended to Europe’s Jews in
the last several years since V-E
Day. Yet we will still have to give
aid in good measure. But if we
stand by their side just a little
longer, we will accomplish our sa
cred purpose — to bring our fel
low Jews overseas a new life of
usefulness, dignity and health.
(Copyright, 1949, J.T.A., Inc.)
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