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Governor Lehman Urges Support of Drive of Federation of Jewish Philanthropies

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Former Governor Herbert H. Lehman, who was the principal speaker last night at the official opening of the 1948 campaign of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies — which is seeking $16,500,000 to operate its 116 health and welfare institutions in Greater New York — asserted that “the continuance of the work of Federation’s agencies is one of the problems we must meet and overcome in the postwar world.”

Benjamin Lazrus, chairman of the federation’s current drive, which will continue through Jan. 1949, pointed out that “while the level of services in our institutions is high, the financial foundation that supports them is so critically, woefully and terrifyingly weak, that if an emergency arose, Federation could not maintain our institutions for more than six months.”

Ralph E. Samuel, president of the Federation, asserted that the work of the Federation is distinctly democratic and uniquely American. You would not, you could not, find a Federation or a Community Chest or a Welfare Fund — Protestant, Catholic or Jewish — in a non-democratic country, “he declared.

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