A record expansion for Jewish Community Centers throughout the United States in terms of facilities, aggregate membership, and attendance at Center activities was noted by Irving Edison, president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, in the annual report of the agency for 1950 made public today.
During the year 1950, the JWB report says 502,000 persons of all age levels–from the pro-school child to the adult–belonged to 331 Jewish Community Centers affiliated with the National Jewish Welfare Board. These Centers owned facilities aggregately valued at $40 million and operated on a budget aggregating $11,700,000 for the nation. Total attendance at Center activities throughout the country came to 10,860,000.
The work of the Centers and of JWB itself was profoundly affected by “new responsibilities thrust upon them in 1950 by the national emergency,” the report emphasized. Unprecedented expansion of Jewish Community Center facilities, coinciding with the developing national emergency, the JWB report points out, made possible the “fullest adaptation of Center programs and services to the needs of the nation’s defense mobilization.”
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.
