Curle Explains Jordan Refusal to Admit Jews

The government of Jordan is still officially at war with Israel, and will not permit any Jews to enter the country on the assumption they are enemy agents, Adam Curle, visiting professor of Education, said last night.

Curle, who has previously worked with refugees in the Middle East, emphasized that the feeling was a political one, caused by the division of Palestine. It is not, as many people tend to feel here, the kind of anti-Semitism practiced by the Nazis, he said.

The effect this information will have on Phillips Brooks House's Project Jarba is still uncertain. Project Jarba, announced last month, is planning to send 20 to 30 student to Jordan this summer to help resettle displaced Bedouins.

PBH and CARE, co-sponsors of the project, have not yet received definite word from the Jordanian government about allowing Jewish students to participate, the CRIMSON learned last night. A final decision has been postponed until further information is available.

If Jews are not permitted to enter the country, the PBH cabinet will reconsider the whole project, Mary B. Taylor '62, president of PBH, said yesterday. If, however, the cabinet still agrees to sponsor it, Project Jarba will be submitted to the Faculty committee with the limiting condition.

In discussing the present relations between Israel and Jordan, Curle noted there was "a good deal of emotion on both sides." However, he added that most Jordanians here told him their best friends were "Jews with whom they used to lived before the partition."

Project Jarba is aimed at easing the huge refugee problem Jordan now faces with the displacement of five million Bedouins, a nomadic people whose native territory has been carved into the nations of Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The group from the University will help supervise and build a village accommodating 300 Bedouins.