More than 1,500 Jewish leaders from communities throughout the United States and Canada will participate in the 40th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds (CJF) at the Hilton Hotel, it was announced today by Max M. Fisher, CJF President. The Assembly begins tomorrow and ends Sunday.
Louis A. Pincus, chairman of the Executive of the reconstituted Jewish Agency for Israel and chairman of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Charles I. Schottland, president of Brandeis University, will give a major address at the convention. Pincus will discuss “A New World Partnership for Israel’s Needs and Progress.” Pincus will assess developments since the historic reconstitution of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem last June and explore how best the new partnership between American Jewish communities and the Jewish Agency can meet the urgent human needs of Israel’s immigrants and newcomers.
In an overview of the social welfare problems and actions before the nation, Dr. Schottland, in his address, will discuss “What Should America’s Human Priorities Be?”. The Brandeis president and former dean of the school’s Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare, is currently president of the International Council on Social Welfare, an association of governmental and voluntary social welfare organizations representing some 75 countries throughout the world.
Of major interest at this year’s 40th forum will be the final review and action by the delegates of the recommendations of the Task Force on Jewish Identity–capping two years of intensive, community by community study and discussion. At the Assembly’s opening plenary session, Irving Blum of Baltimore, chairman of the Task Force, in his address “Jewish Identity–Recommendations for Action,” will present a consolidated report previewing the signal resolution delegates will be asked to vote upon before the Assembly ends.
STUDENT PARTICIPATION PLANNED
This key resolution, responding to the concern of Federations, who represent 95 percent of the Jewish population of North America, calls for an enhancing of the quality of Jewish life, by: creation of a new instrument under CJF auspices, to concentrate on innovative projects dealing with all aspects of Jewish identity, with a three-year program subject to review; with funds to be provided by Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, foundations and other sources.
More than 50 sessions and workshops will be devoted to the broad scope of needs and opportunities at home, overseas and in Israel that are before the American Jewish communities. The Assembly will attempt to strengthen existing actions and create new avenues whereby Federations in cities large and small can deal with them. Assembly reports will cover the gamut of local Jewish communal concern: changing community services; Jewish education; family and child care; hospitals; the aged; the campus and the community; Jewish centers; and endowment funds, which present new opportunities and dimensions in long-range Jewish Federation planning.
Featured also are sessions whose focus is: initial findings of the National Jewish Population Study; Jews in poverty; National Health Insurance proposals and their implications for Jewish Federations; inter-city cooperation and collaboration among Jewish newspapers; and special needs of volunteer-directed Federations. On the international level, the delegates will give major study to two paramount areas: the continuing plight of Soviet Jewry, and the coordinated local and national efforts to help those who wish to emigrate to Israel and elsewhere; and the mounting social welfare needs of Israel, aided now by the new partnership between North American Jewish communities and the Jewish Agency in Israel to meet these needs.
Of special significance, Fisher noted, will be the campus representation with students as official delegates of their respective communities, and as full participants in the Assembly program and deliberations. Special sessions have been designed for college youth and faculty members: integrating the campus and the community; current directions in Hillel-Federation relationship; reaching the unaffiliated student; and year-round and summer encampments for college youth. There will also be an orientation session by college youth tendered to other delegates. Among the highlights during the Assembly will be a special session on Soviet Jewry.
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