B’nai B’rith Progress in United States and Abroad Outlined at National Convention

The steady growth of the membership of B’nai B’rith, the expansion of the Hillel Foundations and the work of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League was reviewed here by Frank Goldman, national president of the B’nai B’rith, in an address at the organization’s trieanial convention now taking place here.

Resolutions urging enactment of President Truman’s Civil Rights program and the liberalization of displaced persons legislation were adopted today at the convention. It was decided also to appoint a committee to study the problems and needs of the people of Israel and to request B’nai B’rith ledges to implement recommendations made by the committee.

Mr. Goldman reported that efforts are being made by the organization to rebuild its lodges in many of the 30-odd countries where such units existed before World War II. In certain countries, he pointed out, the governments are opposed to organizations having foreign connections. At present, B’nai B’rith has lodges functioning in England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, in eight Latin American countries, and in Israel.

Notable progress has been achieved by B’nai B’rith in Israel, where the organization now numbers 30 lodges, of which 10 are in Tel Aviv. “Scarcely a month passes without a new lodge being organized there,” the B’nai B’rith president told the delegates. Anti-Semites No Real Menace in England, British Leader Tells Dolegates

Reviewing B’nai B’rith aid to the people of Israel, he reported that B’nai B’rith members contributed more than $4,000,000 worth of food, clothing, medicine, machinery, automotive equipment, ambulances and tools. This effort was followed by a recreation room program for Israel military hospitals. The two newest rooms were formally dedicated in January 1950, one in tribute to Eddle Jacobson, the other to the memory of Mrs. Martha Truman, mother of the President.

Gordon Liverman, president of the B’nai B’rith Grand Lodge in Great Britain, addressing the convention, asserted that the anti-Somitic, fascist movement in England, while a great irritant, does not constitute a real menace. Mr. Liverman pointed out the behaviour of these organizations, “is a great provocation, not only to the Jews, but to a considerable section of British public opinion, who regard its continued existence as a contradiction of the ideology for which all classes made such unexampled sacrifices in the recent war.”

Judge Shalom Kassan, vice president of the B’nai B’rith District Grand Lodge in Israel, and Shalom Doron, Israel secretary, brought greetings from President Chaim Weizmann and said that Premier David Bon Gurion has asked B’nai B’rith to assist in the settlement of immigrants. He reported that lodge members in Israel were taxing themselves one Israel pound each year to relieve the problem. An invitation was extended to all B’nai B’rith members to visit Israel.

Benjamin R. Epstein, head of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, repudiated a news dispatch carried today by a New York newspaper which reported that there was disagreement within the B’nai B’rith on the “Jim Crow,” issue, aggravated by trouble at Hillel Foundations at George Washington University, Brooklyn College, and the University of Oklahoma. Mr. Epstein said that the information therein was “a complete fabrication and a lie out of the whole cloth.”