United Jewish Appeal Renewed for 1946; Jewish Leaders Summoned to National Conference

The United Jewish Appeal will continue to serve as the unified fund-raising instrument in 1946 for the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service, it was announced here today.

The terms of the 1945 contract among the three agencies will continue for the coming year, the announcement said. All net funds raised for the United Jewish Appeal in the coming year will be distributed, after an initial allotment to the N.R.S., on the basis of 57 percent to the Joint Distribution Committee and 43 percent to the United Palestine Appeal. The Jewish National Fund will retain traditional collections up to the amount of $1,500,000. The J.D.C. will be permitted to accept earmarked contributions from landsmanschaften up to the amount of $800,000.

A three-day extraordinary national conference of the United Jewish Appeal, the first to be convened since its inception in 1939, will open on Dec. 15, at the Hotel Chelsea in Atlantic City for the purpose of considering how American Jews will cope with the responsibilities of rebuilding Jewish life in Europe and Palestine in 1946. Community leaders and officers of Jewish welfare funds throughout the country have been sumnoned to the conference to share in the shaping of the U.J.A. campaign for the coming year.

A statement issued by Rabbi James G. Heller, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise and William Rosenwald, national chairmen of the United Jewish Appeal, said: “Grave emergencies face our fellow Jews in all parts of the world. Superhuman efforts will be required to cope with the desperately tragic situation. Neither the United Jewish Appeal nor its constituent agencies can meet these crucial problems unless Jews of this country fully understand their magnitude and adopt a program of action commensurate with the scope of the demands of the hour. It will be the responsibility of the Jewish communities, through their delegates to the Atlantic City conference, to help determine in what measure the United Jewish Appeal and its agencies shall deal with the overwhelming needs of the survivors of Hitlerism.”