THE JEWISH NEWS

Page Thirty-six

Food, Kerosene Shortages Hit
Arabs, Jews Alike in Palestine

By ARTHUR D. HOLTZMAN
Special Jewish News Correspondent
TEL AVIV.—When the Palestine Government Public Informa-
tion Office was forced to give up its office on the Tel AviV-Jaffa
border, due to the refusal of its Jewish and Arab employees to work
there, it set up instead two branch offices, one in Jaffa and the other
in Tel Aviv. The only available teleprinter, which receives govern-
mental press releases from the main office in Jerusalem; remains
in Tel Aviv, necessitating a daily
call by that branch to the Jaffa were exploiting the situation, and
office to relay the government
the people's complaints about the
news releases.
Despite the fact that the two food shortage were > growing
cities, lying side by side, are at louder, the paper said.
war with one another, telephone
See Further Chaos
communications between them is
As bad as the present situation
possibte at all times. Although
•the conversations are always seems, Palestinians look forward
guarded and often strained, Jew- to their food position at the end
ish lawyers often call their Arab of the Mandate with considerable
colleagues, Jewish businessmen dread and foreboding. The people
sometimes speak with their Arab reason that the chaos whith will
branches and associates, and, but surely accompany the change of
rarely, Jews converse with old administration from British to
United Nations in the two short
Arab friends.
The present scarcity and high weeks allotted by 10 Downing
prices of certain foods, and the
fear of prospective shortages
when the British leave and the
United Nations attempts to set up
ct33o ver yreelin gp
the entire machinery of govern-
ment _ in the two weeks allotted
to it, causes considerable concern
INSURANCE
in most quarters: The cost of liv-
ing had skyrocketed in Palestine
605 FOX THEATER BLDG.
during the war years. Today, due
to the country's domestic troubles,
it continues to mount rapidly.
IRVING HEROELIN
Queue-up for Shopping
Road transport difficulties,
AGENCY
fighting in the harbor areas which
ties up ship unloadings, and a
severe cold wave that damaged
the vegetable crops have all con-
tributed to serious shortages of
various commodities. Keeping
well up with the rising commod-
ity index is the increasing size of
the omnipresent queues for meat,
eggs, cooking gas, kerosene, . etc.
Kerosene has become a high
priority topic of conversation in
Jerusalem, especially. With the
exception of the small number of
families who can use electricity
for their cooking, heating and
laundering, everyone must rely
on their more old-fashioned kero-
sene appliances.
Rationing, by means of consu-
mer cards or limited supplies to
retailers based upon a list of
registered customers, is applied
to a wide range of items. Jewish
consumers in Jerusalem are al-
lowed one egg per person week-
ly—in Tel Aviv, three eggs per
week for every child. Sugar,
margarine and cooking fats are
doled out in limited quantities.
Kerosene for cooking and wash-
ing is obtainable only in long
qUeues on street corners, five gal-
lon tin in hand. To get a pound
of meat (on the rare occasions
when shipments arrive) entails
an average wait of an hour and
a half outside the butcher shop.
Haifa Port Jammed
The most tantalizing sight to
the Palestinian today is that of
the great pileup of ships off Haifa
port awaiting their turn to dis-
charge foodstuffs and other need-
ed cargoes. Due to the fear that
the Jews might be using their
Tel Aviv port to import arms,
the Palestine Government order-
ed all American ships to be di-
verted to Haifa for unloading.
Haifa, which is busy trying to
load the country's citrus crops
onto outgoing vessels, and which
Is the scene of constant strife
necessitating the periodic closing
Off of the port area, was ill-
equipped to handle the extra bur-
den. The resultant tieup often
meant a delay of up to three
weeks between arrival and un-
loading of foreign vessels. De-
murrage charges have mounted
accordingly and, in some cases,
Palestine cargoes are being un-
loaded at such points as Cyprus
and Beirut—to be forwarded to
Palestine when, as and if trans-
port is available.
The shortages have hit Arab
and Jew alike. In a recent editor-
ial, the Arab newspaper "Al Itti-
had" wrote that the results of
the establishment of a special
food committee by the Arab
Higher Executive in Jerusalem
several weeks ago were still not
Seen. On the contrary, profiteer-
ing in the Arab markets had in-
creased, since the merchants

Street for the purpose will bring
further dislocations, inevitably re-
sulting in 'a more meagre food
supply.
Not a few housewives, long ac-
customed to the necessity in re-
cent years of having a supply of
food on hand as insurance against
the sudden proclamations of cur-
few and martial law, (when resi-
dents were confined to their
homes for periods of one to four
days) are now attempting to
build up tinned food stocks to
hedge against the future short-
age. But in their hearts they rea-
lize how ineffectual are their ef-
forts since there is little the in-
dividual can do to forestall for
long such an evil stemming from
lack of foresight and planning
(at least) on higher governmental
levels.

Friday, April 23, 1948

Kraft to Report to JWB on Jerusalem YM-YWHA Plans

NEW YORK.—Louis Kraft, gen-
eral secretary of the National
Jewish Welfare Board's National
Council, who has been on a two-
month's visit to Palestine con-
ferring with leaders of the Jew-
ish community there on plans for
a YM-YWHA in Jerusalem, will
return on April 11, to present his
report to the annual meeting of
the National Jewish Welfare
Board at Hotel Stevens, Chicago,
May 8 to 10.
As the secretary of the World

Federation of YMHAs and Jew-
ish Community Centers, which
seeks to foster the Jewish Center
movement in all countries where
feasible and to encourage the de-
velopment of youth-serving or-
ganizations, Kraft, while in Pales-
tine, compiled the information
needed for the preparation of
architectural plans for the Jeru-
salem YM-YWHA and negotiated
with the Jewish National Fund
for a possible site Or the struc-
ture.

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