Lewis Weinstein Tells Jwb American Jews Must Pool Their Leadership

Lewis H. Weinstein, chairman of the National Community Relations Advisory Council and of the Conference of Presidents of major American Jewish Organizations, told delegates to the National Jewish Welfare Board convention here that “isolation is as dangerous to American Jewish life as it is to international affairs.” He called upon American Jewry to “pool its leadership.”

“The best example of this kind of pooling of leadership, ” he said, “was our recent Washington Conference on Soviet Jewry when 500 national and local leaders met to arouse the conscience of the world against the campaign of destruction of religious and cultural life of the Jews in Russia. The kind of leadership we Jews need, to meet our goals, is marked by a profound sense of community, a solid personal commitment to Jewishness and Jewish education, culture and creative survival; and personal identification with the Jewish people and the Jewish ethics.”

At a business session of the convention today, Mrs. Florence G. Heller, Chicago philanthropist, was elected president. She is believed to be the first woman president of a national, American Jewish organization of the JWB type. She succeeds Solomon Litt, who was elected an honorary president. Other JWB honorary presidents, both former heads of the organization, are Charles Aaron, of Chicago, and Irving Edison, of St. Louis.