Edward M.M. Warburg, chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee since 1945, and recently-elected general chairman of the 1951 campaign of the United Jewish Appeal, last night told 300 delegates to the 36th annual J.D.C. conference that “a minimum of 400,000 Jews in Europe, Moslem areas and Israel” will need the J.D.C.’s assistance during 1951. He spoke immediately after his re-election by acclamation as J.D.C. chairman for the coming year.
Meeting at the Hotel Commodore, the delegates also re-elected Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman, and Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, director-general. At the same time, Dr. Schwartz was given a leave of absence to permit him to assume his new post as executive vice-chairman of the U.J.A.
“The aid which the J.D.C. must give cannot be postponed or reduced, ” Mr. Warburg, who presided, told the conference.”The increasing gravity of world conditions has already established a number of emergency situations all over the world. In this year of impending crises, we must intensify our efforts to aid the hundreds of thousands of Jews overseas for whom 1951 may well be the last hour before midnight.”
Mr. Leavitt reported that the minimum which the J.D.C. will require during the coming year for its overseas relief, medical, welfare, emigration and other programs is $23,350,000. Special emphasis during the coming year, he said, will be placed on J.D.C.’s increased social welfare responsibilities in Israel, where it anticipates spending $8,000,000 to care for thousands of aged, ill and handicapped newcomers through the agency known as Malben.
In addition, the main points of the agency’s 1951 budget call for: emigration aid to an estimated 25,000 men, women and children seeking to leave for new homes in the United States, Canada, Australia, South America and other areas during the coming year; and continued relief, welfare, medical and reconstruction programs on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe–particularly the DP countries, Hungary and France–and in Moslem lands in North Africa and the Near East. For its relief, reconstruction and resettlement programs in 19 countries of Europe, North Africa and the Near East, Mr. Leavitt reported, the J.D.C. appropriated $36,568,000 in 1950.
Dr. Schwartz, who returned only two days before from a hurried trip to the J.D.C’s European headquarters in Paris to wind up his affairs preparatory to assuming his new responsibilities as U.J.A. executive vice-chairman, told the delegates that “what I saw and heard only a few days ago has reinforced my feeling that despite all we have done in the past five years, an important part of the task we undertook on Liberation Day still remains to be completed.”
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