With $2,474,960 still to be raised to complete its $6,000,000 quota, the United Jewish Campaign began the second week of its drive with a series of meetings in synagogues, temples, sabbath schools, talmud torahs, club-houses. Y. M. H. A.’s, community centers, lodge rooms and labor unions, which, according to an estimate by Vice-Chairman David M. Bressler, brought the message of the campaign directly to 500,000 people.
An appeal was addressed to the pupils of the several hundred Jewish religious schools in the boroughs of Greater New York, except Brooklyn, which will have a Children’s Day next Sunday.
The results of "Chidren’s Day" was approximately $75,000.
An address by David A. Brown, national chairman of the United Jewish Campaign, was read at all of the mass meetings last night. In this address, Mr. Brown said:
"Never in the history of the Jewish people, dating back for centuries, was there a situation like this, and never before in the history of the Jewish people was there an emergency as great as this.
"Women and children are dropping on the streets from hunger in Bessarabia. Many others are found dead in their homes in Poland. A horrible scourage of typhus is sweeping over the Jews in both lands, adding to the toll of death.
"In thousands of homes, men, women and children are sick to the point of utter exhaustion from hunger. There is another gruesome picture that is given in the cables received by me and by the Joint Distribution Committee in the last few days: That unless substantial help comes quickly, the Jewish orphan asylums will be compelled to close because their resources have been exhausted to the last penny. Thousands of children will be turned out into the streets to roam about aimlessly, helplessly, blindly. Many children already on the streets eat what they can find in garbage cans, or what they can pilfer from a shop or a stand. They sleep in alleys, in cellars. They are ragged. They are tattered and their morals are being destroyed.
"My European correspondents inform me that hundreds are killing themselves, are hastening death because their sufferings have made them impatient of its arrival.
"This, without the slightest attempt of exaggeration is the situation in which millions–I repeat millions–of Jews in Europe are trapped. This is the situation which thus far we have coped with almost in vain. The little money–comparatively little–which the Joint Distribution Committee have been able to send abroad in the last three months has meant virtually nothing at all. It has been able to stave off for another day or two, the day of doom for thousands.
"The Jews of America must immediately respond to this effort; they must raise a sum of money greater than has ever been raised in the history of the Jews of this country, in order that the tragedy which is overwhelming millions of their own flesh and blood shall be stayed."
Hon, James W. Gerard, former American Ambassador to Germany, was the principal speaker at the campaign meeting held Sunday night at Temple B’nai Jeshurun. The other speakers were Charles W. Endel, president of the congregation and Mrs. Elva Lavy, president of the Sisterhood.
David M. Bressler was the speaker at a meeting at Temple Ansche Chesed, 114th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Vice-chairman Jonah J. Goldstein spoke at the Institutional Synagogue.
Miss Hortense Breckler was the speaker at the Rockville Centre, Long Island, Synagogue.
Mr. Bressler announced that he had received a letter from D. Gristede, treasurer of Gristede Bros. Inc., that this concern would donate to the United Jewish Campaign 10 per cent of the proceeds on Thursday, May 6th, of all cash sales in its 115 chain grocery stores in Manhattan and the towns near New York.
Two $1,000 contributions from non-Jews were reported by Leon Lauterstein, chairman of the Rockaway Division, One is from H. Hobart Porter and the other from Thomas Williams, both of Lawrence, L. J. Another non-Jewish contribution reported by Brooklyn headquarters is $2,000 from the W. M. Ritter Flooring Corp.
In Brooklyn mass meetings were held in the various temples, synagogues, Talmud Torahs and Jewish Centers. Judge Grover M. Moscowitz, chairman of the Brooklyn Division of the United Jewish Campaign, with Judge Mitchell May and Edward Lazansky, addressed meetings held at the Talmud Torah Pride of Israel in Williamsburg. Ninth Avenue Temple, and in Brownsville.
Rabbis of Greater New York have contributed $6,000 toward the $10,000 quota assigned to them, according to a report made by Rabbi Israel Goldstein, president of the New York Board of Jewish Ministers and chairman of the Rabbis Committee of the Campaign. Among those who have made gifts are Dr. and Mrs. Stephen S. Wise, $1,000; Rabbi H. G. Enelow, $600; Rabbi M. S. Margolies and Rabbi Simon R. Cohen, $500; Rabbi Leo Jung and Mrs. Jung, Rabbi and Mrs. D. De Sola Pool, Rabbi S. J. Levinson. Rabbi Harry Halpern, Rabbi Rudolph Grossman, Rabbi and Mrs. Nathan Krass, Rabbi and Mrs. Israel Goldstein, $500 each; Rabbi Israel Herbert Levinthal, $200; Rabbis Elias L. Solomon and Edward Lissman, $150; Rabbis Jacob A. Dolgenas, Sidney E. Goldstein, R. B. Weilerstein, Aaron Eiseman, Harry Weiss, Israel Goldfarb, $100 each.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
