The annual sessions of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service opened this evening with a joint session at Temple Beth El, in which the National Association of Jewish Center Executives and the National Council for Jewish Education also participated.
Social workers and educators from every section in the country began arriving yesterday to join in discussions of the economic, cultural and other communal problems affecting American Jewry. A special session of the conference will be devoted to the German-Jewish situation, and Dr. Jonah B. Wise will be the speaker.
All sessions of the conference are being held at Temple Beth El, and the conference headquarters are at Hotel Webster Hall.
A preliminary meeting of the National Association of Jewish Center Executives was held this morning, and other sectional meetings were conducted during the day.
Henry Wineman, chairman of the board of governors of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit, presided at the formal opening session tonight and extended greetings on behalf of the community.
The principal talk of the evening was the presidential address by Dr. I. M. Rubinow, secretary of the B’nai Brith and head of the Conference. Dr. Rubinow’s theme was “The Credo of a Jewish Social Worker.” The invocation was offered by Dr. Leo M. Franklin, of Temple Beth El and Rabbi Leon Fram of Temple Beth El pronounced the benediction.
The opening meeting was followed by an informal reception by the League of Jewish Women’s Organizations of Detroit in the social hall of Temple Beth El.
SOCIAL WORKER’S DUTIES
Stressing the duties of the social worker, Dr. Rubinow declared that “it is the duty of the Jewish social worker, the trained professional servant and spokesman of that community, to make for a healthy, intelligent, self-respecting Jewish community as a setting in which there can grow up a healthy, happy, integrated Jewish personality, and which as a whole can make its constructive contribution to the life of the American Nation of which we constitute an integral, permanent even though distant part.”
The social worker must also assume the “role of competent interpreter of his own group to the surrounding macrocosm,” Dr. Rubinow pointed out. He dare not avoid this duty, he said. “It is his because of his assumed training and competence in applications of social psychology. It is his because of his familiarity with the needs of the minority. It is his because of his contacts with the civic leadership of the community as a whole.”
EDUCATION COUNCIL PROGRAM
Bernard Isaacs, director of the United Hebrew Schools of Detroit, delivered the opening address at the executive session of the National Council for Jewish Education, this morning. Albert P. Schoolman, executive director of the Central Jewish Institute of New York, was chairman of the meeting.
Reports were read by Dr. Samuel Dinin, secretary; Dr. Louis L. Kaplan, treasurer; Dr. Alexander M. Dushkin, on the Jewish Education Magazine, and Dr. Mordecai Soltes, director of extension education of the Jewish Welfare Board, New York, on Jewish educational contributions for the year 1932.
Reports on studies and experiments were described by Dr. Julius B. Maller, director of educational research of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Dr. Solomon Grayzel and Abraham Segal of Graetz College, Philadelphia, and Dr. Israel S. Chipkin, educational director, Jewish Education Association, New York. A discussion followed presentation of these reports.
A discussion on Jewish education in America was held in the afternoon under the chairmanship of Zvi Scharfstein, of Teachers Institute, New York. It was led by Dr. Leo L. Horner of the College of Jewish Studies, Chicago; and A. H. Friedland, superintendent of Cleveland Hebrew Schools and Institute.
A joint session was held in the evening at which Dr. Charles S. Bernheimer, of New York, president of the National Association of Jewish Center Executives, and Albert Schoolman, of New York, president of the Jewish National Council for Jewish Education, delivered their presidential reports.
Nate S. Shapero, president of the Jewish Centers Association of Detroit, was chairman of the session.
CENTER EXECUTIVES PROGRAM
The National Association of Jewish Center Executives opened their session with a luncheon meeting at the Tuller Hotel at which Rev. Dr. Leo M. Franklin of Detroit presided at a discussion on the value and significance of character building agencies. Prof. Henry M. Busch of Cleveland College, Western Reserve University, and Rabbi Solomon Goldman, of Chicago, spoke.
Fred M. Butzel presided at a symposium in the afternoon on cooperation of lay and professional leadership. A. M. Luntz, of Canton, O.; Robert A. Hess, Milwaukee; Mrs. Joseph H. Ehrlich, Detroit; Mrs. Esther Jameson, Newark, N. J.; Harvey Golden, Montreal; Allan Bloom, Indianapolis, and E. J. Londow, New York, took part in the symposium.
The Detroit Committee on local arrangements is headed by Mrs. Samuel R. Glogower, as chairman, and Mrs. Joseph M. Welt, as vice-chairman. Other members of the committee include Mrs. Joseph H. Ehrlich, Ella Vera Feldman, Rabbi Leon Fram, Bernard Isaacs, Samuel Levine, Kurt Peiser, and Mrs. Andrew Wineman.
Many of those attending the Jewish Conference will remain in Detroit to participate in the annual sessions of the National Conference of Social Work, which will take place next week.
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.
