A “minimum expectation” goal of $23,000,000 for the 1940 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal was announced officially today by Chairmen Abba Hillel Silver and Jonah B. Wise. Participants in the U.J.A. are the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service, Inc.
Although the quota is the largest American Jewry has been called upon to meet in any one year, the statement by Rabbis Silver and Wise emphasized that the total of the minimum budgets of the constituent agencies exceeds the goal of $23,000,000 which has been set up as a “minimum expectation.” The 1940 quota represents a substantial increase over the 1939 objective.
Declaring that in 1940 the J.D.C., the U.P.A. and the N.R.S. must receive larger sums in order to snatch from annihilation large sections of European Jewry, Dr. Silver and Dr. Wise asserted that the 1940 quota “challenges the sacrificial generosity of American Jewry.”
Major Jewish communities throughout the country have already launched their 1940 campaigns. According to the U.J.A., the Chicago Jewish Welfare Fund is setting the pace for the entire country, having opened its drive officially on Jan. 30 at a mass rally addressed by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. The Chicago campaign, under the chairmanship of Harris Pearlstein, is directed toward the largest goal in the history of the city’s Jewish community. Other cities in which campaigns have already been launched include Louisville, Birmingham, Miami, Jacksonville and Troy.
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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.
