Karpf Sees Most Valued Agencies Cramped by Continual Fund Lack

This is the last of a series of three articles by Dr. Maurice Karpf on the national social service agencies. Dr. Karpf is director of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work.

There are national agencies about which there are no questions and few criticisms. Do these agencies fare better than those which are questioned and criticised?

Consider the National Desertion Bureau as a case in point. This agency was organized by the National Conference of Jewish Social Service. It has rendered satisfactory and important service to communities and individuals; and it has received national and international recognition. Nevertheless, with all that this organization has done, and is doing, it is receiving from the federations only between fifteen and twenty per cent of its total needs. Why is this organization receiving such meager support from the communities it serves?

The National Conference of Jewish Social Service is an organization which social workers need. Until very recently no question was raised about the need or the desirability of the Conference, and yet that Conference has eked out a miserable existence because of the inadequate funds it received from federations. Indeed, if it had not been for the generous contribution which the Bureau of Jewish Social Research has been making to the Conference for a number of years in the form of part-time secretarial service, the Conference would have been obliged to go out of existence.

LARGER AGENCIES BETTER OFF

The larger national agencies are, of course, better situated. But take an organization like the Joint Distribution Committee, an organization which, in my judgment, represents the greatest single effort and achievement in Jewish history on the part of one Jewish community for the alleviation of the suffering of all Israel. As an organization it has the very best leadership American Jewry can offer. Its administration is beyond cavil. Since its organization, it has raised and distributed more than $82,000,000 to suffering Jews throughout the world. It has rendered a colossal service. And yet, this organization with its excellent leadership and unexcelled reputation in this country and abroad, an organization whose work and achievements have reflected everlasting glory upon American Israel, has to struggle to obtain the funds which it requires.

Or take the American Jewish Committee with more or less the same type of leadership, an organization of which Dr. Cyrus Adler is the honored president and Morris Waldman, the director. This organization, which stands like a bulwark for the defense of the rights of Jews in America and elsewhere, has no easier time in getting the funds it needs than any other national agencies. To be sure, there are some questions and criticisms of the work of this organization. In my judgment they are largely due to the fact that the organization cannot, must not, and dare not broadcast the information about itself and its work which those who are not in intimate touch with it should have in order to understand the type of work it is doing. But there can be no question about its importance or the need of the work it is doing.

BUDGET INADEQUATE

This organization, it would seem, should have the wholehearted support of the local communities, for they cannot possibly duplicate its service locally. Nevertheless, even in these, the Hitler days, it does not have anything like an adequate budget. It does not get anything like what it should get toward even the limited budget it has, from the federations.

The same might be said of the Bureau of Jewish Social Research and the National Conference of Federations and Welfare Funds. They are no better provided for by the federations than any of the other organizations, even though they are directly the servants of the federations and the welfare funds.

Mr. Glucksman, the director of the Jewish Welfare Board, speaking recently about the Jewish youth movement, states that the Jewish Welfare Board has served as a coordinator, as a stimulator and as an organizer in the Jewish Center field. It has created a literature; it has professionalized the field; it is indeed creating a Jewishly-conscious youth in America. Surely it is doing a most important work. Surely, also, federations should support this work. But the Jewish Welfare Board receives a comparatively insignificant portion of its budget from the federations and welfare funds in this country.

THE HILLEL FOUNDATIONS

Closely related in importance to the youth movement is the work carried on by the B’nai B’rith for the Jewish college youth through their Hillel Foundations. Coming in contact with most of the universities throughout the country as I do, I cannot but be deeply concerned with what is being done for our college youth. It is from this group that our leaders of tomorrow must come. And yet the B’nai B’rith is having a most difficult time in obtaining the funds it needs for carrying on its work in the Hillel Foundations. The B’nai B’rith is the only organization in this country that had the vision and courage to enter the college campuses and to undertake a program, for our youth so as to bring home to them their relationship to their people. Stop and think what the Hillel Foundations are doing and compare that to the need!

There are only eleven Hillel Foundations in this country. There should be a Hillel Foundation on every campus having a substantial Jewish student body. But even those Hillel Foundations that are in existence are very poorly housed, financed and staffed. Why do federations and welfare funds not recognize the importance of this national agency by more adequate support?

There are a number of other national agencies which I might use as illustrations of the inade-

quate support which federations and welfare funds are giving to national organizations irrespective of the value and quality of their work. But two limitations prevent me from doing this. One is space, the other is that of choice, since I wanted to cite only those agencies about whose work there can be no question. One of these, and the last that I shall mention, is the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work. I am sure you will forgive me for mentioning this institution.

I shall not go into the history of the School. Felix Warburg, chairman of its executive committee, has a very interesting article in the December, 1934, Jewish Social Service Quarterly, which was reprinted in the Jewish Daily Bulletin of January 3, 1935. I shall not deal with any of the items dealt with by Mr. Warburg. I shall endeavor to separate myself from my official capacity as head of the School and write as tersely and as objectively as I can with regard to it.

HAS TRAINED 500-600

I believe that no one at all informed will gainsay that in the years of its existence the School has served Jewish social work well, by creating for it a trained personnel which could not otherwise have been accomplished. It has trained either fully or partially between 500 and 600 people. It has called Jewish Social Service as a profession to the attention of the entire Jewish student body throughout the country and has made the local schools of social work conscious of the need of training for Jewish social work.

Despite the efforts of this School and the other schools of social work only about ten per cent of the staffs of Jewish social agencies are properly trained. There can therefore be no question whether the School is necessary. Even those communities which have schools of social work need this