The 24th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds opens here tomorrow in the presence of more than 500 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the United States and Canada. The four-day conference will explore major community problems and will map plans to meet the changing needs of Jewish life in this country and overseas.
The conference will begin with a keynote report by Stanley C. Myers of Miami, entitled, “Are Community Organizations Keeping Pace With The Communities#” Mr. Myers, who is a past president of the Council, will present a round-up appraisal of more than 60 prominent community leaders who contributed their views on the changing conditions and needs at home and abroad and the extent to which the central Jewish community organizations have adjusted to and have met those needs.
Intensive assessment of fund-raising, suburban development, chronic illness and leadership in American Jewish communities, will highlight a series of workshop sessions at the Assembly. The workshop sessions, an annual feature of the national conference of Jewish communal leaders, will divide the community leaders into small groups according to the size of Jewish communities, where the delegates have maximum opportunity for full exchange of experience and frank discussion of top priority community problems. From these sessions, emerge the planning guideposts which will help local communities formulate stronger programs in 1956.
The General Assembly is the governing body of the CJFWF. The Council is the national association of more than 250 Jewish federations and welfare funds representing approximately 800 communities throughout the United States and Canada. Delegates are chosen by member agencies in accordance with the size of their Jewish population.
METHODS OF FUND-RAISING FOR 1956 TO BE DISCUSSED
A major series of workshops will concentrate on “The Best in Fund-Raising in 1955 The Lessons for 1956.” At three concurrent workshop sessions delegates will review the campaign reassessment experiences of communities which had successful campaigns, effective changes which were initiated in campaign organization and techniques, and worker training programs.
One of the key sessions of the Assembly will be held Friday when a panel of experts will discuss overseas needs and services. Semah Cecil Hyman, Consul General of Israel, and Bernard Bell, former Deputy Director of the Office of Economic Advisors to the Israel Government, are two of the principal panelists. They will cite the achievements of Israel in the past decade and will also evaluate the special roles in continued Israel development of philanthropy, bonds, private investment and government aid. Herman M. Pekarsky, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Essex County (Newark), who was a member of a mission which has just returned from a study of conditions in Israel and Europe, will report his observations to the delegates.
“The Assembly will be a working meeting,” Julian Freeman, CJFWF president, declared in a statement made here today. “It is the one occasion during the year when the foremost Jewish communal leaders can meet together to discuss, frankly and fully, the most important problems facing their communities and to learn from the experience of others the best methods of dealing with these problems. The accent will be on small workshops, divided according to size of community, where the fullest participation of all delegates can be assured.”
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.
