J.D.C. Rejects Congress Proposal for Special Drive, Broader Executive Base

The Joint Distribution Committee has rejected proposals submitted by the American Jewish Congress for organization of a “mass” campaign for overseas relief and broadening the base of representation in the J.D.C., it was disclosed today when correspondence between the two organizations was made public. Both proposals were contained in a resolution adopted at a conference last October of representatives of 421 organizations affiliated with the Congress, and later amplified in the form of a memorandum to the J.D.C.

In replying to the first proposal, the J.D.C. cited participation in the United Jewish Appeal and local welfare funds as making it “wholly inadvisable and impractical for the Joint Distribution Committee to associate itself at this time with any plan of money-raising that has not been discussed by the designated representatives of the welfare funds throughout the country, or which, after such discussion, does not meet with their approval.”

Rejection of the second proposal, for inclusion of Congress and affiliated groups’ representatives in the J.D.C. administration, was explained as follows: “The Joint Distribution Committee has only one purpose, viz: to provide remedial, preventive and constructive relief service to Jewish communities, organizations and individuals, suffering as a result of adverse conditions abroad. It cannot include within its official structure any persons who regard themselves as representatives of organizations or agencies having other functions or purposes, however important, whether they be of a political, civic, or defense, or of any other nature. The Joint Distribution Committee cannot assent to a proposal that other bodies shall be authorized to designate representatives on the Executive or other committees of the Joint Distribution Committee. The Joint Distribution Committee is confirmed in the policy that it has heretofore followed, viz: that it should be representative of a cross-section of Jewish life in America, and should devote itself exclusively to the purposed stated above.”