Local Angeles Jewry this week raised $65,000 of its $75,000 quota for the United Jewish Appeal as a dinner held at the Ambassador Hotel, marking the opening of the drive.
Nearly 1,000 leaders of the Jewish community attended and prominent members of the motion picture industry were also present. Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, who with Paul Baerwald, Louis Lipsky and Morris Rothenberg, is co-chairman of the nation-wide effort to obtain $3,000,000 for the aid of the Jews of Germany, was the principal speaker. Superior Court Judge Isaac Pacht, chairman of the Los Angeles campaign, presided. Other speakers included Harry M. Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Eddie Cantor, Rabbi Jacob Sonderling, Oscar Lawler and Federal Judge Harry A. Hollzer, chairman of the dinner committee.
THALBERG HEADS UNIT
Preparations for the appeal began a few weeks ago. Starting with a luncheon at which $35,000 was secured, the leaders of the community revised their schedule and planned to inaugurate the drive at once. Irving Thalberg became head of the motion picture division of the campaign and others started an active solicitation leading into the dinner at which $65,000 of the $75,000 quota has already been subscribed.
RAISE $65,000
Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, in his address, gave a graphic picture of the condition of the Jews in Germany as he saw them on a visit to that country shortly after Hitler came into power.
“I felt as though I was in a strange, savage land,” he said. “From leaders who came to me with fear in their breasts, I got a story that has awakened the world to the need of relief, not only for the Jews, but for all creeds, for about twenty per cent of those who have fled from that country are of other faiths than ours.”
DIVISION IS WEAKNESS
Mr. Warner declared that “the divided front of Jewry the world over is the curse of the race. We suffer now as always, because we are divided and weak. It is not the Jews that are attacked, it is civilization.”
The committee in charge of the campaign is composed of the following:
Judge Isaac Pacht, chairman; Irving Thalberg, chairman of the motion picture group; Meyer Elsasser, Ben R. Meyer, Judge Harry A. Hollzer, Jack L. Warner, George Mosbacher, Mrs. S. H. Berch, honorary chairmen; Mendel B. Silberberg, Charles Brown, Marco R. Newmark, Dr. Maurice Kahn, Judge Benjamin J. Scheinman, Mrs. Henry Lissner, vice-chairmen; Herman F. Hahn, treasurer; I. Irving Lipsitch, honorary secretary, and J. Peckell Nathan, executive secretary.
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.
