The General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds today decisively defeated the national advisory budgeting plan proposed by the Council’s board of directors. The vote was 264 1/4 to 53 1/4 A motion to defer the issue was beaten 212 to 101, with 40 delegates abstaining.
Tonight the more than 1,000 delegates at the conference were told that a serious depression of a prolonged duration could easily become a basis for a powerful fascist and anti-Semitic movement in the United States. This warning was voiced by Dr. Isador Lubin, former U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics, addressing the General Assembly on the outlook for economic and social progress. He said that the next eighteen months will determine the eventual course of American economy.
Sidney Hollander, retiring president of the CJFWF, presenting his annual report, emphasized that “there will be no security for Jews, if that security is denied Catholics, Negroes or any other group that differs in color, race or custom from the majority.” He urged full employment, better wages, non-discrimination, health and homes for all groups as the basic means of fighting anti-Semitism in the United States. “Only in an America fully united is there hope that the problem of the Jew will disappear,” he said.
SAYS ECONOMIC WELL-BEING OF U.S. WILL BE FACTOR IN CURBING ANTI-SEMITISM
Joseph Willen, executive vice-chairman of the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, warned that the economic well-being of America is a most important factor in the crushing of anti-Semitism, and that the solution of the deep racial and national tensions of America are beyond the Jews as Jews alone. “We must merge with our fellow-man in the struggle to build a better and more prosperous America,” he said.
He pointed out, however, that there are specific tasks that the Jews can undertake by themselves. The Jews of America, Mr. Willen said, will have to spend infinitely larger sums and do more planning, thinking and creative work in the fight against anti-Semitism. “Gone is the day when anti-Semitism could be dealt with on a day-to-day basis,” he added.
The New York social work leader predicted that “if over the years, big business will supplant small business in an ever-growing degree, the Jews will face a major problem that may not be apparent to the naked eye now, but may plague the Jews in America 20 years hence.”
Mr. Willen dealt at great length with the exclusion of Jews from various fields of employment. He stressed that anti-Semitism is not confined exclusively to rabble-rousers and street-corner meetings or to ill-printed race-baiting tracts. “The virtual exclusion of Jewish students from some of the leading universities and medical schools of the country is one of the most challenging problems the Jewish community has to face,” he said. At the same time, he stressed that Jewish doctors of this generation will have no place to practice, if more Jewish hospitals are not built.
STANLEY C. MYERS OF MIAMI ELECTED PRESIDENT OF COUNCIL
Stanley C. Myers, Miami communal leader, was elected national president of the CJFWF, succeeding Mr. Hollander. The General Assembly also elected four vice-presidents: Harris Perlstein of Chicago; William Rosenwald of New York; Samuel S. Schneiersohn of New York; and David Watchmaker of Boston. Harold J. Goldenberg of Minneapolis was named secretary; Ira M. Younker of New York, treasurer; and H.L. Lurie was re-elected executive director.
A resolution extolling Mr. Hollander for his “courageous, vigorous and independent leadership, in keeping with the highest ideals and traditions of the Jewish people,” was adopted by the delegates. The General Assembly adopted a budget of $242,000 for the CJFWF for the current year.
The entire morning session today was devoted to a generally placid discussion of the budgeting issue with William J. Shroder of Cincinnati, chairman of the Council’s board of directors, presiding.
Jacob Blaustein, of Baltimore, was the principal spokesman for the proposal. He was supported by Mr. Hollander; Julian Krolik of Detroit; Ben Sadovsky of Toronto; Samuel Gerson of St. Louis; Donald Oberdorfer of Atlanta and Sol Brachman of Fort Worth.
The principal speakers against budgeting were Isaac Heller of New Orleans; Rabbi James Heller of Cincinnati; Henry Monsky of Omaha; Ezra Shapiro of Cleveland; Charles Brown of Los Angeles; Mrs. Moses Epstein of Hadassah and Harold J. Goldenberg of Minneapolis.
PROGRAM FOR RELIEF, REHABILITATION OF EUROPE’S JEWS PROPOSED
An eleven-point program for the relief, rehabilitation and resettlement of the 1,400,000 surviving Jews in Europe, to be carried on by American Jews through the $100,000,000 nationwide United Jewish Appeal, was presented to the General Assembly last night.
The program was formulated by Mrs. David M. Levy, of New York, chairman of the National Women’s Division of the United Jewish Appeal; Rabbi James G. Heller, of Cincinnati, retiring national chairman of the U.J.A., and Dr. William Haber, of the University of Michigan, former director of man-power in the Office of War Man-Power and Reconversion. It would provide for:
1. Relief and rehabilitation for about 300,000 Jews remaining in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy, among them 22,000 children, most of whom are orphans.
2. Supplementary aid to 80,000 Jews in the displaced persons camps of Germany and Austria, many thousands of whom have fled from renewed anti-Semitism in Poland.
3. Emergency assistance to the 80,000 Jews remaining in Poland, and to 700,000 Jews still in Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.
4. Emigration aid for displaced Jews and other homeless Jews of Europe, the great majority of whom want to go to Palestine. Others want to come to the United States.
5. The care, reception and training of new immigrants into Palestine.
6. The acquisition of new land areas for the building of agricultural settlements in Palestine and for the construction of new housing centers.
7. The establishment of fourteen rural villages and the expansion of the 300 existing settlements in Palestine to absorb emigrants and reintegrate former Palestinian Jewish members of the British Home Armed Forces.
8. The development of trade and industry in Palestine and the expansion of opportunities for employment so that the capacity of the Jewish homeland to absorb hundreds of thousands of Jews in the near future may be increased,
9. The maintenance of displaced Jews who will be admitted to the United States under President Truman’s directive, so that they will not become a public charge.
10. The training of the newcomers to the United States to adjust them to the American way of life.
11. Assistance to Americans in locating their kin overseas, and migration services in behalf of those seeking a haven in the United States.
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.
