Jewish Federations’council Proposed for United States

The suggestion that the Jewish philanthropic federations in various cities and towns in the United States form a joint council for the purposes of coordination and study of social service problems was put forward at the opening session of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service which began here Sunday night at the Hotel Breakers. Two hundred delegates were in attendance. City Solicitor Joseph B. Perskie welcomed the Jewish social workers’ meeting and Dr. Harry S. Davidowitz. local rabbi, delivered the invocation. A series of luncheons and entertainments have been arranged by the local Jewish community in honor of the delegates.

Samuel A. Goldsmith, executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Social Research and president of the Conference, who made the proposal, outlined the work of such a council. Its task would be to study the development of the various types of Jewish philanthropy and undertake the support of standard social service work in substandard communities. The council would also seek to ascertain the facts for judging whether or not there are certain general factors operating in communities at large which will limit or define, enlarge or decrease, the work to be done in any given field of functional activity. The council, according to the plan, should also make studies of new work and conduct new work in an experimental form so that communities planning hospitals, Jewish education systems, child care institutions or similar agencies, might know in advance of the possibilities and the expense, the practical results and the idealistic achievements. Mr. Goldsmith declared.

From the sums spent by American Jewry for philanthropy here and abroad, it is evident that the Jews of America have made a good economic adjustment. “And yet.” Mr. Goldsmith stated. “there has been no concentrated effort to study cooperatively what is happening in our Jewish communal and philanthropic work.”

Jewish social work agencies in the United States are spending in the aggregate more money than they did in the past. Mr. Goldsmith reported. The increase in cost is noted notwithstanding the fact that the numbers under care of the agencies are decreasing. The mounting cost in Jewish philanthropy is due, he explained to a general extension of services, higher standards of living allowed to the dependents, corresponding to the higher standard of living of the community at large, and a better and more refined technique of social service which requires trained persons at higher salaries.

“There is a deep-rooted, emotional spiritual change that has permeated the being of the Jewish community in this country.” Mr. Goldsmith said. It’s manifestations are everywhere.

In the past, in its cruder forms, there was a certain savagery, a certain beating of tribal tom-toms. This was in the propaganda stage. Today, to a very large extent, there is a sense of well-being and spiritual satisfaction. But there must inevitably come the period of rationalization. The problem of the adjustment of the Jew in America will remain.”

Dr. Maurice B. Hexter, executive director of the Federation of Jewish Charities of Boston, who acted as secretary for the Joint Palestine Survey Commission, read a paper on the extension of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and its implications for Jewish life in the United States. The creation of the extended Jewish Agency will give American Jewish leaders a new outlook on international affairs and a better understanding of Palestinian problems which will be reflected in their attitude to Jewish public problems in the United States, he said, predicting that “in the international sphere the Jewish Agency will sooner or later be considered as the international mouthpiece of organized Jewry of the world. We shall develop international statesmen who will be of inestimable value in many directions.”