Dr. Boris D. Bogen, of Cincinnati, executive director of the Independent Order B’nai B’rith, was elected president of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service at the final session of its three-day meeting held at the Breakers Hotel here.
The election of Dr. Bogen comes at the height of a life-time of service to public causes for the last forty years. Beginning in his early manhood as a member of the teaching staff of the Educational Alliance, Dr. Bogen was successively a teacher at the Baron de Hirsch Trade School, the Hebrew Technical Institute and principal of the Baron de Hirsch Agricultural School. He then was named executive director of the Cincinnati Federation of Jewish Charities, then field secretary of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service, and during the war and some time thereafter was general director of the Joint Distribution Committee in Europe. On his return to America he became executive director of the Los Angeles Federation of Jewish Charities and for three years has been at the head of the I.O.B.B. work in the U.S.
Ferdinand S. Bach of St. Louis was elected treasurer and George W. Rabinoff of New York, was named secretary. Harry L. Glucksman, executive director of the Jewish Welfare Board; Mrs. Alice I. Liveright of Philadelphia and Judge A. K. Cohen of Boston were elected vice-presidents. Maurice J. Karpf of New York, director of the Training School for Jewish Social Work; Philip L. Seman, director of the Jewish People’s Institute of Chicago and Alexander M. Dushkin, director of Jewish education of Chicago, were elected as members of the executive committee for three-year terms and Benjamin Glassberg of Milwaukee was named for two years.
At its closing session the conference passed a resolution approving the movement to establish old-age pensions and old age insurance systems by legislative enactment by the various states. It also was decided to appoint a committee to study means for the care and treatment of transients, many of whom, it was reported, pass from agency to agency without any checkup on the part of social workers who might return these men to their families in many cases and save young vagrants from a “life on the road.”
The conference sent a message of condolence to Julius Rosenwald, of Chicago, on the recent death of his wife, who throughout her life-time was interested in welfare work, taking an especially active part in the Girl Scout movement. A memorial resolution also was passed as tribute to the late L. Edward Lashman of New Orleans.
Dr. Herbert Adolphus Miller of Columbus, of the faculty of Ohio State (Continued on Page 4)
University, in the principal address of the closing educational session of the conference, spoke on Cultural Elements in American Jewish Life and their Value to American Democracy. Dr. Miller maintained that racial groups cannot survive on tradition alone and declared that while social values must be conserved as long as there is value in them, “next steps” must be taken before ultimate values are attempted.
“It is better for a group to persist in diverse and crooked paths than passively to fall in step with any other group which seems to be going in the accepted direction,” said Dr. Miller.
A departure in conference procedure was taken when the final session closed without a formal adjournment. Some of the delegates remained over for the sessions of the National Association of Jewish Community Center Secretaries, whose first sessions were held jointly with the general social work meetings. Other delegates will continue to San Francisco where the conference will resume its sessions June 26, with Far Western delegates as the speakers of the program. The Jewish workers are affiliated with the National Conference of Social Work and the additional session in the West was arranged to give them a chance to attend the San Francisco meeting.
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.
