“Grave concern over the accusations and vilification s by the Communist-dominated countries against the Jews in their own lands and Jews everywhere” was expressed in a resolution adopted here by more than 100 Jewish leaders from 24 communities attending the Central Atlantic Regional Conference of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.
The resolution called upon American Jews to speed up their 1953 campaigns “so as to strengthen Israel as a haven of refuge for Jews subjected to persecution anywhere. ” The resolution emphasized that Jews in the United States must continue to mobilize their resources in defense of their brothers overseas and in Israel and thereby help to preserve freedom and democracy everywhere. The American Jewish community is the great reservoir of Jewish strength in the world and our responsibility is the great and continuing help of our fellow Jews overseas, ” it pointed out.
The conference also adopted unanimously a resolution urging the revision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, calling it “contrary to the democratic principles of our country. ” The resolution stated that the act “injures our national reputation with other peoples of the world.”
Principal speakers at the conference were Edwin Wolf II, vice-president of the Philadelphia Allied Jewish Appeal, Philip Bernstein, associate director of the CJFWF, and Harold Glasser, director of the CJFWF Institute on Overseas Studies. Mr. Wolf urged a long range view in allocating funds rather than responding to immediate pressures. He called for “new criteria” to determine future budgeting. “The first priorities, ” Mr. Wolf said, “should lie with those institutions which will assure an active Jewish community a generation from now, because without that community in the future, all our plans stand but on a foundation of sand and all our programs are but written in water. The next priority should lie with those agencies which have Jewish content for they can receive support only from a sectarian fund. Finally we come to those agencies which could just as well not be Jewish and perhaps should be financed differently.”
Mr. Glasser reported that the American Jewish community successfully carried out the mass emigration of a million Jews and the rehabilitation of the Jewish communities of Western Europe. “Two major overseas programs remain to be completed,” he said, “the modernization of the Jewish communities in the Moslem countries and the economic establishment of the State of Israel. Israel has the full potentiality of economic success, but it can be achieved only by giving highest priority to agricultural development,” he declared.
Addressing the closing session of the conference, Mr. Bernstein reviewed Jewish communal responsibilities in 1953. Citing current changes in Europe, Israel and America, he declared: “We face grave responsibilities in a troubled, anxious world, which leaves no room for complacency. That surely is evident to the leaders of our federations, welfare funds and community councils who are concerned not alone with one need, but with the totality of needs. We recognize that we can only meet overseas problems as we build a strong American Jewry to do it. And we know, too, that we cannot haw a dignified, secure American Jewry if we permit second class citizenship or destruction of Jewish life anywhere. “
Irving D. Prisoner of Passaic, N.J., was elected president of the CJFWF Central Atlantic Region for the coming year. Nathan Kuss of Wilkes Barre, Pa., and Moses Lavinsky of Camden, N.J., were elected vice-presidents and Abram S. Berg, Jr., of Philadelphia, Pa., was elected treasurer.
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.
