The Joint Distribution Committee, at its annual meeting today, adopted a budget of $33,461,000 for its activities in 1964, almost $3,000,000 greater than in 1963. More than 500 delegates from all parts of the country attended the dinner meeting at which Mrs. Marietta Tree, United States representative to the United Nations, was the guest speaker. Her address was devoted to the advances in civil rights made in this country.
The adopted budget provides for relief, medical and welfare services for some 485,000 needy Jews in 30 countries of Europe, North Africa and the Near East, including Israel. This is the greatest number to be aided since 1949. The budget is to be submitted to the National Conference of the United Jewish Appeal, which opens tomorrow and will continue through Sunday.
The largest single item in the budget remains the JDC-Malben program in Israel, he noted. The budget provides $7,000,000 to aid aged, ill and handicapped newcomers to the Jewish State in 1964. The next largest item, $5,565,900 is for aid in Europe. In the Moslem countries, despite the continuing emigration of tens of thousands, close to 100,000 Jews– about half the remaining Jewish population–will need JDC assistance in 1964. The budget has allotted $6,200,000 for its program in this area.
In Israel JDC will provide aid for over 83,000, some 50,000 of whom will be assisted through the Malben program through its network of institutions and through non-institutional care and rehabilitation services. Another $795,000 will be allocated for aid to another 35,000 in 104 yeshivoth (religious schools) and other religious and cultural programs in the Jewish State and for vocational training.
WARBURG RE-ELECTED CHAIRMAN; STRESSES OVERSEAS MIGRATION
Edward M. M. Warburg, who was re-elected at the meeting as JDC chairman, reported that the historic migration of overseas Jews, which began immediately after World War II, was still continuing. “There are two–still powerful–streams of men and women and children on the move to Israel,” he said. “Despite the hundreds of thousands who have joined these streams in the past decade and a half, the numbers still waiting or en route can still be counted in the tens of thousands. Noticeable numbers of newcomers to Israel are physically handicapped and will shortly, if not immediately, need the assistance of Malben, JDC’s welfare program in the Jewish State.”
This will not necessarily result in a decrease in JDC’s responsibilities in other areas, Mr. Warburg noted. In Moslem countries, the influx of Jews from isolated villages to the cities, the shrinking and virtual disappearance of communal organizations, reduction in government assistance, and the departure of Jews who formerly had contributed to local relief funds, all add to JDC’s burden.
“JDC is today caught between the hammer and the anvil,” Mr. Warburg said. “The hammer is the need of nearly half a million Jews overseas–the need, the aid they must have, the cost of providing this aid. The anvil is the fact that at this moment there are not sufficient funds to meet these needs. I said that JDC is caught–but it is not JDC; it is those in need who are between the hammer and the anvil. It is they who are suffering, they who may be crushed,” Mr. Warburg concluded.
410,000 JEWS AIDED BY J.D.C. IN 1963, LEAVITT REPORTS
Moses A. Leavitt, who was re-elected executive vice-chairman, reported that preliminary figures indicate that JDC aid in 1963 went to more than 410,000 men, women and children. “This aid included cash relief for 38,780; food for 74,440; medical aid to 35,605; aid to 2,270 in homes for children and youngsters; and 4,815 in homes for the aged; schools with 51,545 students and cultural and religious programs serving 32,795.
Charles H. Jordan, JDC director-general for overseas operations, in analyzing at the dinner the 1964 budget, stressed the number of Jews to be aided by JDC in the coming year “is the largest since 1949.” He cited especially the fact that of the 85,000 Jews to be aided in all of Europe in 1964 more than 50,000 are refugees from Algeria and other North African countries now residing in France. “Thousands of them,” he reported, “are without adequate housing, other thousands are either unemployed or on low paying jobs. As a result, requests for relief have risen sharply in the past three months. JDC will require $4,000,000 in France in 1964, mainly for refugee aid,” he said.
Sol Satinsky of Philadelphia, who was re-elected chairman of the JDC National Council, reported on the growing knowledge and understanding of the needs of Jews overseas in American communities as a result of the agency’s Community Information Program. Edwin Rosenberg of New York was elected Comptroller. He succeeds Alexander A. Landesco, who died earlier this year.
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.
