The American Jewish Congress accused today the city Human Resources Administration of “blatant neglect of the Jewish poor” and a “shameful attempt to confuse the issue by raising non-existent questions and falling to face up to its own dereliction.” In a letter to HRA administrator Jules M. Sugarman responding to the report issued Monday by the HRA. Will Maslow, executive director of the AJCongress charged that the report had floated a “red herring” of church-state constitutional questions “in full knowledge of anti-poverty grants that have gone uncontested to Protestant and Catholic churches and church groups for service programs.”
In addition, the HRA had “shockingly” implied that officials of public agencies who serve on the Council Against Poverty “represent a Jewish constituency when in fact they represent government agencies and all of the people served by those agencies–white, black, Jewish and non-Jewish,” the AJCongress letter asserted, and noted that only four of the 51 Council members–not 12 as HRA suggested–represented the Jewish poor. The letter also declared that the Jewish poor were underrepresented on local community corporations and that HRA “has never done anything to correct the situation” despite a 1968 Council Against Poverty “plan to insure racial and ethnic balance on the boards of directors of community corporations.”
Maslow further noted that the Council has the power under the federal Economic Opportunity Act to establish “citywide programs so that the poor who do not reside in defined poverty areas can be helped” but has funded “few such citywide programs and none that would alleviate the burden on the Jewish poor.” Maslow’s letter also charged the HRA with “making no effort to reevaluate the criteria used in defining poverty areas.”
He asserted the AJCongress “recognizes that insufficient monies come to New York City from the federal government for the anti-poverty program and many other necessary and proper city programs. That is not and cannot be used as an excuse of shortchanging the Jewish poor. They should be getting their fair share of those funds that do exist to alleviate the wretched conditions of poverty which are degrading and debilitating to those who live in them regardless of religion or race.”
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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.
