Jews Helped To Israel

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31082, 10 June 1966, Page 1

Jews Helped To Israel

The international Jewish Agency for Israel finances 60,000 Jews a year who “need to go” to Israel, Mr Arin Abrahamson, of Jerusalem, an officer of the agency, said in Christchurch last evening.

Those who “had to go” to Israel came from countries in which it was still difficult for Jews to live, including North African and European countries.

The agency made travel arrangements for all the immigrants and assisted them with education, housing, training in skills and trades, and in any other ways needed. Although some could contribute, about 60 per cent were destitute, said Mr Abra-

hamson. Jews paying their own way came from 100 countries.

After three months in Australia, Mr Abrahamson is spending three weeks in New Zealand speaking to Jewish communities and others interested in the work of the agency. He is seeking financial support Mr Abrahamson said that Jews in Australia and New Zealand were all very helpful to the agency’s work. The absorption of the immigrant was often a hard process, and took from two to three years, Mr Abrahamson said. To help the newcomers learn Hebrew they were sent to special seminars to study 16 hours a day for six months.

The absorption branch of the agency had experts on its staff who helped the immigrants to settle into jobs

and into the community. It had been necessary to change the Jewish attitude to life which in some countries involved centuries of restriction to two or three occupations, and to eradicate bad habits, including an attitude to self labour which Jews had found in their wanderings. The agency, which had been established in the 1920’5, had as its first task the mobilising of world assistance, to develop Palestine as the new Jewish home. Its main task was now in immigration. Mr Abrahamson, who originally lived in South Africa, has been a citizen of Israel for the last four years, but has only had eight months of that time at home. He was posted for three months to the large Jewish communities in Manchester but had stayed three years.