Cash proceeds for the United Jewish Appeal totalling $18,150,000 were received today at the final session of a two-day emergency U.J.A. National Leadership Conference attended by 600 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the country. This gave the Appeal more than 50 percent of the $35,000,000 it is seeking in the last three months of 1952.
The checks received today brought the U.J.A. ‘s cash income to $64,200,000 for the first nine and one-half months of the year. Edward M.M. Warburg, U.J.A. General Chairman, termed the $18,150,000 cash proceed “all the more astonishing and unprecedented for coming just four weeks following our first announcement that we would seek $35,000,000 in the last three months of 1952.”
The conference, apprised that another $17,000,000 in cash must be raised by the year’s end to help the U.J.A. attain its $35,000,000 goal, urged campaign communities throughout the nation to maintain the tempo set in the first four weeks of the emergency drive through action on a four-point program. The program aims to secure full payment by contributors of 1952 pledges; to negotiate bank loans against pledges that will be outstanding until the early part of 1953; to seek pledges in advance of the 1953 campaign and partial payment on them before the end of 1952; and to collect on pledges still outstanding on pre-1952 campaigns.
The checks brought in today represented contributions from cities throughout the nation. The principal donors were New York $4,000,000; Chicago $1,000,000; Detroit $1,000,000; Los Angeles $1,000,000; Boston $1,000,000; Cleveland $800,000 Philadelphia $700,000; Baltimore $400,000; Washington $300,000; St. Louis $300,000; Pittsburgh $266,000; Hartford $225,000; Kansas City, Mo., $214,000; Buffalo $200,000; Cincinnati $200,000; Newark $200,000; San Francisco $150,000; Milwaukee $126,000; Bridgeport $125,000; Toledo $120,000; New Haven $100,000; Columbus $100,000; Miami $100,000; Worcester $100,000; Omaha $100,000; Scranton $100,000; and Rochester $100,000.
DR. SCHWARTZ EMPHASIZES ISRAEL’S NEED FOR “FREE DOLLARS”
Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, U.J.A. executive vice-chairman, told the delegates that the need for American Jews to provide Israel with free dollars has been given renewed emphasis by the recent signing of an indemnification agreement between the West German Government and Israel. The agreement provides for payment of $715,000,000, mostly in goods, over a 12-year period.
“The successful conclusion of the agreement gives Israel a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve economic self-sufficiency in the foreseeable future, if we do our part,” Dr. Schwartz said. However, he emphasized that “it would be tragic if Israel finds herself compelled to divert these supplies from their intended purpose of building up her economic plant, and use them instead for the purchase of food supplies, owing to a falling off of U.J.A. funds.”
American Jews, Dr. Schwartz said, must continue to make large sums available to Israel to cover the costs of feeding, housing and caring for immigrants, and for similar expenditures on which on return can be expected. “Our responsibilities will not end until Israel has reached a much greater degree of economic independence,” he stated.
Oved Ben-Ami, founder and Mayor of Nathanya, Israel, reported to the conference that his city “faces the problem of absorbing tens of thousands of immigrants in very much the same way that all of Israel is confronted with this staggering task.”
Rudolf G. Sonneborn, national chairman. of the United Jewish Appeal-major beneficiary of the U. J.A. – told the conference that U.J.A. funds have helped to transform Israel from an “over-urbanized country” with ” too many people in the cities and not enough on the farms” to a nation where the trend in population is now steadily “farmward.” In the last four years, he said, “there has been an increase about 89 percent in the number of people engaged in agriculture.” This movement, he said, has helped fill Israel’s total requirement for milk and sharply increased the supply of vegetables.
William Rosenwald, a national chairman of the U.J.A., told the conferees that cash brought in this week-end was “already earmarked for the most urgent needs” and emphasized to community leaders the importance of continuing their fund-raising efforts.
In a special report outlining what the U.J.A. must accomplish before the end of its 1952 campaign, Jack D. Weiler of New York, chairman of the U.J.A. $35,000,000 emergency cash campaign, told the conference that funds must be made available without delay to the United Israel Appeal for financing urgent winter relief and settlement programs in Israel.
The U.J.A. cash chairman cited the need for warm, safe shelter to replace the tents and shacks in which 245,000 immigrants are presently living, adding that “these 245,000 men, women and children constitute one-sixth of Israel’s population.” Mr. Weiler pointed out that funds are also required to help the Joint Distribution Committee expand its medical aid and rehabilitation programs in Israel and continue its welfare and relief activities among distressed Jews in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
EBAN SAYS U.N. MUST STIMULATE ARAB-ISRAEL PEACE TALKS
Stating that the United Nations cannot evade the fact that four years of Arab refusal to negotiate with Israel “is equivalent to refusal of peace.” Israel Ambassador Abba Eban, in an address to the conference last night, suggested that the U.N. can “contribute powerfully” to peace. He said this could be done by “summoning” the Arab states “to free and direct negotiations” with Israel.
“In all the history of international relations,” Mr. Eban said,” nobody has ever secured a peace settlement by telepathy or remote control.” He added that “some turning point in Arab-Israel relations might even now be near” were it not for the tensions that are “irresponsibly renewed” in public at each annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
The Ambassador told the conferees that the U.J.A. is helping to establish an Israel-Arab accord by its aid in strengthening Israel’s economy. “Israel will have peace with its neighbors,” he said, “when they are convinced of Israel’s strength, permanence and stability.”
In another major address, Haim Cohen, Israel Minister of Justice, said Israel is not a theocratic state and will not develop in that direction despite the great inspirational debt its evolving legal system owes to ancient rabbinical law. Mr. Cohen asserted that Israel”” is making a supreme effort to free itself entirely from all emotional, sentimental, religious and national prejudice as it seeks to create a system of law in keeping with modern democratic needs.
The purpose of our laws,” he told the conference, “is to meet the basic requirements of a progressive and democratic community and not to perpetuate a jurisprudence deriving from religious tradition. Since Israel’s establishment four-and-a-half years ago,” the Minister pointed out, “our basic aim has been to evolve a new juridical structure incorporating the best of all the world’s known legal systems.”
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.
