Social Service Groups Ask for a New Deal

Following many hours of animated discussion, the joint convention of three Jewish social services and education organizations this afternoon went on record as advocating that boards of directors of social agencies recognize delegated representatives of the social work staffs in matters affecting the welfare of the employee group.

The groups meeting at the Hotel St. Charles are the National Conference of Jewish Social Service, the National Association of Jewish Center Executives and the National Council for Jewish Education.

Dr. Maurice Taylor, of Boston, chairman of the committee reporting to the conference on the status of the Jewish social worker, also endorsed in principle the formation of membership associations of employees of social agencies, without endorsing the theory, tactics or methods which such organizations may develop.

A special committee was appointed to work out the relation between such organizations and the social work administration.

Retirement allowances, group annuities, health and accident insurance, and group life insurance were commended by the committee as methods for obtaining economic security for Jewish social workers.

Adoption of a proposed revision in the constitutional structure of the national conference, which would broaden its scope to include all Jewish commercial agencies, was deferred for a referendum of all agencies and organizations in the conference.

HITS STRATIFICATION

Launching a scathing attack on the important Jewish organizations and on “stratification in American Jewish life,” the New York Committee of the Case-Workers section of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service presented its report on “The Jewish Social Worker and His Relation to the Jewish Community” last night at the joint convention of three Jewish social service and education groups at the Hotel St. Charles here.

Clara Rabinowitz is chairman of the committee, whose members include Fannie Bailin, Edith S. Beck, Moses Beckelman, Shulamith Berlin, Janet Hilton, Theodore Isenstadt, Anna Kaplun, Eli Picheny and Lucille Slonim. eJewish organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and the Joint Distribution Committee, the report maintained, suffered from the domination of German Jews in America. The American Jewish Congress, according to the committee, as well as Zionism, youth movements and fraternal orders all suffer “either from a lack of clearly formulated programs of action or from inability to attract large numbers or from an absence of any approach to the Jewish problem in basic terms.”

The report laid down two fundamental points that must be taken into consideration for any Jewish program of action. These points were.

1. That economic security is a prerequisite to cultural activity.

2. That social workers must recognize the implications of the horizontal stratification in American Jewish life.

Emphatic opposition to the report was voiced by Dr. I. M. Rubinow, national secretary of the B’nai B’rith, who characterized it as paradoxical and lacking in frankness. Dr. Rubinow took exception to mention of Russia in the report.

“You cannot approve Communism as it has found expression in Russia,” Dr. Rubinow declared, “and still speak in terms of continuity of Jewish values. Communism spells the doom of all those values and all those forces-religion, language, culture-without which there can be no Jewish life.”

“As for economic security,” he added, “it is not yet established that the people of Russia have achieved it.”

OFFICERS, DIRECTORS ELECTED

William Pinsker of Brockton, Mass., was elected president of the National Association of Jewish Center Executives at its business session yesterday. Other officers elected included: Allan Bloom of Indianapolis, William Cohen of Brooklyn, Miriam Ephraim of New York and Louis Sobel of the Bronx, vice-presidents, and Isadore Brierfeld of Yonkers, N. Y., secretary-treasurer. The executive committee is composed of Moses W. Beckelman, New York; Jacob I. Cohen, Providence, R. I.; Paul Goldblatt, Harrisburg, Pa.; Harvey Golden, Montreal, Que.; Dr. Philip R. Goldstein, New York; Rabbi J. L. Greifer, Binghamton, N. Y.; George M. Hyman, Syracuse, N. Y.; Herbert Kohn, Nashville, Tenn.; Rabbi Alter F. Landesman, Brooklyn; Flora Levine, Bronx; Samuel Share, Scranton, Pa., and Dr. Mordecai Soltes, New York.

The convention closed today with a business session of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service and of the Jewish teachers’ section of the National Council for Jewish Education. Speakers today included Maurice Taylor, Ben M. Selekman, Solomon Lowenstein, Ben Edidin, Israel Unterberg, Elias Picheng and Joseph Elkin.

SOCIAL WORKER AND JEWISH COMMUNITY

The inchoate condition in the Jewish social service field, this absence of a philosophy of Jewish life in terms which translate themselves into action, cannot, as we shall see, be changed wholly to the account of Jewish social service. It is true, however, that the history and motivation of a good portion of Jewish social work will explain the remoteness of the major Jewish communal agencies from the community which they plan to serve.

The German Jew set up a program in philanthropies whose major motive was the rapid Americanization of the East European Jew who might otherwise by his foreigness draw unfavorable attention upon his fellow Jews of German origin. The Jewish worker has always looked with suspicion upon the philanthropy of the rich Jew. The clash of interest between the two groups was epitomized in the development of powerful Jewish unions in the needle trades some twenty years ago.

CONFLICT RECURRENT

This gap between the two groups is a recurrent motif in American Jewish communal activity and serves to account in large measure for the lack of effectiveness of most programs for Jewish life, to enlist the support of the Jewish masses. Thus we find that the American Jewish Committee, organized in 1905, and limiting its membership to the mere wealthy German Jewish group, has been at odds with middle class Jewry and working classes in this country, as to the methods of dealing with the menace of anti-Semitism here and abroad. The American Jewish Congress, spokesman for the lower middle classes, and the Jewish Labor Committee, have sought to use mass protest as a technique for dealing with this problem, whereas the committee has adhered to its traditional policy of Shtadlonus-attempting to bring influential diplomatic and financial pressure to bear in achieving its end. Since Hitler’s rise to power the American Jewish Committee has opposed the anti-Nazi boycott and every organized mass protest by American Jewry. Prominent Jews in America have even gone to the extent of implying that there is a relationship between this attitude and the fact that the German-Jewish financiers who represent the same economic group as the personnel of the American Jewish Committee are still largely untouched by the Nazi regime.

Even the Joint Distribution Committee, organized to meet the war-time emergency needs of European Jewry, suffered from the same split between leadership and mass. Its activities were initially viewed with suspicion by East European Jews in this country and its methods of handling and distribution funds, especially in Russia and the Ukraine, have been severely criticized. Similar general considerations apply to other fund-raising groups like the Jewish Colonization Association.

Although this historical account of the background of German Jewish leadership in American Jewish communal activity serves to explain the division in American Jewish life, and indicates that despite the sincerity of motive and the benevolent intention of German Jewry toward their East European brethren, economic interest may sometimes have superseded Jewish affiliations, it does not account for the failure of the Jewish masses to achieve an articulate expression of Jewish life in their own terms. Even such agencies as Zionism, the American jewish Congress, youth movements and fraternal and benevolent orders, have suffered either from a lack of clearly formulated programs of action or from inability to attract large numbers or from an absence of any approach to the Jewish problem in basic terms.

UNIONS MOVE TO “RIGHT”

Although the Jewish Labor Committee differentiated itself from the congress, it speaks for the leadership of the Jewish labor unions and its policy in major issues differs little from that of the Congress. What has happened, of course, is that the once militant Jewish unions have moved to the right and are today indistinguished from the American Federation of Labor.

Though the American Jewish Congress claims to be representative of every group in the Jewish community and, as indicated, is more democratic in its constitution than the American Jewish Committee, it too, has failed up to now to enlist the support of sufficiently large mass participation to justify its title in terms of representing the four million Jews of the United States. It may be summed up at the present time as a middle class organization, which, in dealing with the current manifestations of anti-Semitism, is attempting to enlist a broader vase of support.

With the exception of B’nai B’rith, which has sponsored Hillel Foundation on the college campus and the A. Z. A. youth movement, fraternal and benevolent orders are of comparatively little importance in any analysis of the contemporary Jewish scene.

PALESTINE FALLS SHORT

In the years immediately following the Balfour declaration, Palestine was looked to as the solution of the problem of Jewish life in the Diaspora. While it was always recognized that the bulk of the fifteen million Jews of the world could not be accommodated in its limited confines, it was felt that the presence of a significant Jewish community life in that area, whether organized on a political or cultural basis, would serve as a point of reference for Diaspora existence and would give to other Jewish communities a dignity and a normal status which they had hitherto lacked. Recent developments, however, have indicated that the problem is by no means so simple.

Far aside from the fact that in Palestine proper, developments have not yielded all that optimistic Zionism expected in the twenties, its contribution to the life of Jewry in Galuth has been relatively small. As a mitigator of anti-Semitism by giving the Jew parity of national status, it has had no discernible influence. As a cultural leaven in Jewish life, its product has, quite naturally, been indigenous to Palestine, and has expressed itself in Hebrew, thus having little relevancy to the background of world Jewry, more than half of which still speaks Yiddish and most of the other half of which certainly neither speaks nor understands Hebrew. Nor can we look to an ultimate renascence of Hebrew culture in America to furnish us a connecting link. Events have moved too fast both here and in Europe for us to wait. The problems of American Jewry must be dealt with here and now.

Two other programs remain. The first of these, religion, has been the traditional capstone of Jewish life. It is today progressively losing its hold as are all other religions in the rapidly increasing secularization of modern living. The writs of orthodox Judaism no longer run for most of us, and the Talmud, the Prophets and the Law have lost much of their strength as a spiritual inner bulwark against anti-Semitism or as a rallying point for Jewish communal activity in America.

ASSIMILATION NO SOLUTION

Finally, assimilation, if it can be called a program, should by this time require little analysis for this audience. If the experience of German Jewry has proved nothing else, it has proved the utter falsity of the assumption that the Jew can solve his problem by attempting to cease to be a Jew. But apart from this practical consideration, assimilation is not a constructive solution. The continued existence and progressive development of Jewish culture is a contribution not only to the lives of individual Jews but, as we shall subsequently consider, to world culture and to seek its disappearance as a living force through assimilation, is to run counter to any sound principle of dynamic sociology.

If we turn to the Jewish press as an instrument which may logically be expected to reflect Jewish cultural life in America we find that it mirrors and epitomizes the formlessness and lack of program which our analysis has found in American Jewish life. The Yiddish press which in the early days of East European immigration was a vital force in Jewish life, is today rapidly diminishing in importance. Many once flourishing Yiddish dailies have either given up the ghost completely or have consolidated with other papers. The Anglo-Jewish press is largely periodical in character and, like the remaining Yiddish dailies, represents Jewish political factions or various shadings of Jewish religion. Other phases of Jewish cultural expression reflect a similar meagerness. Music, art, drama cannot by any interpretation be viewed as vital constructive forces in American Jewish life today.

SECURITY THE CRITERION

It is our basic responsibility as workers in the field to keep that elementary proposition-economic security is a prerequisite to cultural creativity-clearly before us and to use it as a criterion for evaluating the programs which we shall be translating into action ### our day to day routines. Against its implications we must measure the “isms” that currently prevail in Jewish life, and which we have discussed in this paper, and those that will come to us with increasing force as the crisis deepens. The concepts of “Jewish content in social work programs,” Jewish education for all Jewish children,” “occupational restraining of Jews” and all the others which have found expression at this conference and will in the future find their way into Jewish communal activity, must be stacked up against the basic issue so that we may be able to understand which of them are in harmony with a fundamental solution and so are applicable as interim procedures and which of them are irrelevant or actually opposed to the real approach to Jewish problems. Such an understanding must be part of the equipment of every social worker who feels the need of an ideological adjustment to the realities of his job.

Secondly, as social workers, we must recognize for ourselves and our profession the implications of that horizontal stratification in American Jewish life which has been indicated earlier in this paper. The underlying allegiances of the bulk of Jewish leadership as at present constituted are not with the Jewish group as against all opposing forces but are generically to their own economic interests. As we have already indicated, this accounts for the failure of Jewish leadership to enlist mass participation and support in its efforts to deal with Jewish problems, for those efforts, no matter how sincere and well-intentioned, have been colored in their techniques by the economic interests of the group which directs them.

SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM

Unemployment can be eliminated under a social order which has greater concern for the welfare of the many than for the accumulation of profits by the few. With constant technological changes, the machine is becoming increasingly productive. This productivity should result in more consumption goods, greater leisure, and increased security for the workers themselves. Instead, the benefits of the machine are enjoyed by the owners of the means of production, who curtail their activity until production becomes profitable, regardless of the number of workers thrown out of employment. Under a type of social order where profits are not the basis for production, the machine would be are instrument for directly benefiting the worker.

What are some of the practices that social workers might have challenged? The outstanding example is acceptance of the granting of relief according to budgets estimated below standards of adequacy. The tendency has been to regard necessities as luxuries. Private agencies have tended to regard their estimates of adequacy as unrealistic because of their contrast with the lower relief grants of public agencies and the inadequate wage levels of industry. Where budgets have been estimated on the basis of adequacy, families are frequently assisted on a lower basis to conform to the level of the potential income, an income which is not in sight.

Social workers have recognized the basic need for adequate shelter, but have practiced the policy of rent evasions, emergency rent payment and rentals that cannot provide adequate housing. This practice has resulted in thousands of evictions, unwholesome overcrowding, and occupancy of condemned houses.

Has not the social worker also unquestioningly carried out the policies in relation to CWA and work relief programs? Every client is expected to accept any work offered, regardless of his fitness, previous skill, or his attitudes. In the routine of administration, it has been impossible to individualize the giving of work. In some cases the aged and the sick have been referred for work beyond their physical capacity and the white collar man has been practically forced to perform unaccustomed manual labor.

In our bewilderment, we have turned to the government for a solution.

It is evident that no fundamental remedies have been proposed up to the present time. We feel, therefore, that a system of insurance against insecurity is necessary, as an immediate aim pending more fundamental chances. In the United States little progress has been made in establishing insurance against unemployment. At the present time there are a number of unemployment insurance bills pending in Congress. The two outstanding are the Wagner-Lewis and the Workers Unemployment and Social Insurance bills. Before evaluating these bills, let us consider the essentials of adequate social insurance.

1. The bill should be national in scope. As M. Lurie said at the Washington Conference of the A. A. S. W., “The economic basis for security can only be obtained on a national scope and local conditions are dependent upon and interrelated with a nation-wide economy.”

2. The bill should provide for all workers. The professional, the laborer, the farmer and the domestic worker have all suffered from insecurity.

3. The bill should be non-contributory. The responsibility should fall on those who benefit from the profits of work. Security should be a legitimate charge against industry and the government. The beneficiary of unemployment insurance should not be required to contribute.

4. The bill should cover the full period of unemployment.

5. Compensation should be equal to the local wage levels. A full substitute for unemployment will maintain purchasing power.

6. The bill should be administered by the chosen representatives of the beneficiaries. According to Mary Vam Kleeck of the Russell Sage Foundation, “It is aimed to avoid any intrusion of political consideration or employer interests where these would be in conflict with the best interests of the unemployed.”

Because we feel that the Workers Unemployment and Social Insurance Bill would meet the immediate need for security under our individualistic order, we propose that social workers give it support.