(Source: Reading Eagle, April 16, 1962, at 17.)
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, making her first appearance in Reading since 1939, criticized the United Nations last night for censuring recently an Israeli attack on Syria.
The former U.S. delegate to the UN claimed that a full-scale study should be made of Jewish-Arab border clashes before the UN placed blame on one side.
The 77-year-old widow of former President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke before 150 persons at a Reading United Jewish Campaign banquet in the Berkleigh Country Club near Kutztown. Mrs. Roosevelt spoke before a capacity audience at the Rajah Theater 22 1/2 years ago.
Mrs. Roosevelt returned three weeks ago from a visit to Israel. She said Israeli leaders “wouldn’t mind the censure if they felt something would be done about the situation.”
She explained Israel contended in the U.N. that its attack was a self-defense measure after Syrian shore batteries fired on an Israeli armored launch and wounded two policemen. Both nations complained of border violations.
Mrs. Roosevelt continued that daily casualties among Israeli farmers living near Arab borders “should be better known” in making a judgment of the situation.
She praised Israel for its example of democracy and economic progress and contrasted that nation with surrounding Arab lands which she said had a social structure based on “contented rich at the top and poor miserable people at the bottom, with nothing in between.”
The aims and objectives of the United Jewish Appeal were outlined at the banquet by Samuel H. Daroff of Philadelphia, national chairman, and Norman B. Dunitz of Pennside, local chairman.
