World Ort Issues Appeal to Jewish Communities for More Funds

An appeal to all Jewish communities and to all Jewish fund-raising organizations to allocate more funds for Jewish vocational training conducted by the ORT was issued here today by World ORT Union headquarters.

Dr. Aron Syngalowsky, chairman of the world executive of the ORT, also made public the text of a declaration adopted at the recent 75th anniversary ORT Congress held here in which ORT organizations around the world are urged “to increase their efforts in the service of Jewish work, its propagation and its cultural and technical elevation.” The declaration recalls “with veneration and gratitude” the founders of the ORT in 1880 and all those who had been its leaders and workers since that time, “among them the tens of thousands killed by the Germans in the years of the Hitler regime.”

The declaration states that having heard the reports of the scope of ORT’s accomplishments in the last period and having heard of the size of the current tasks in North Africa and Israel and other countries, the ORT Congress established: 1. That the ORT Union has grown to become a significant Jewish national cultural institution which occupies a very important place in Jewish communal life; 2. That the tens of thousands of youths and adults, who have since the end of the second World War created for themselves an honorable existence with the help of the trade training of ORT, have reduced the poverty among Jews, have participated in the up building of Israel, and have enhanced the esteem of Jewish work; 3. That the task of teaching Jewish youth trades in accord with modern scientific and technical developments is today considered by all Jewry regardless of religious or political tendency as one of the most valid commandments of Jewish existence around the world and of the up building of Israel.

“Despite the above facts”, the declaration continues, “the number of trade schools and trade courses is still small in comparison with the number of young Jews who must be saved from moral and material need. Currently in North Africa only 7% of the approximately 60,000 Jewish youths between the ages of 14 and 18 are receiving trade training; in Israel today there are over 50,000 youths of the same age for whom there are no possibilities of vocational education. The Congress therefore appeals to all Jewish communities, to all Jewish fund-raising bodies and to all foundations for constructive aid to allocate greater means for the purposes of Jewish vocational training and thereby to help strengthen the vital force and the creative possibilities of our people.”