Alumni of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work, attending the National Conference for Jewish Social Welfare, formed a steering committee to enlist support for the school. The action followed pleas for maintenance of a Jewish “civil service” voiced by Morris D. Waldman, secretary of the American Jewish Committee, and Dr. Maurice J.Karpf, head of the school.
The committee is headed by Philip Houtz, New York, and was organized at a special meeting called at the conference. The twenty graduates present donated $2,000 to the school and pledged like sums for the next two years, Houtz announced.”It is our hope that the action we took will stimulate and inspire similar contributions from others, both lay and professional ,who share our views on the school and its importance,” he said.
The plight of the Jewish social worker in seeking training for his work was likened to the plight of the Jewish medical student of today in a statement issued by the newly -formed committee. The statement read:
“Discontinuance of the services of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work would be a tragic loss to the Jewish community and cause irreparable damage to the whole structure of Jewish social service. It would, before long, affect the standards of our agencies and the morale of our communities. It would introduce in the field of social work hardships, similar to those suffered by the potential Jewish student in the medical and other fields. There could be no hope for the Jewish civil service that Mr. Waldman advocated last night and which he regards as a factor of prime importance at this time when Jewry everywhere is waging a defensive war against the ruthless assaults on our civil and economic positions, on our very right to physical existence.”
A resolution was adopted at the general conference extending “greetings and admiration to those philanthropic institutions and to the social workers and communal leaders on their rolls who, in the face of almost insuperable difficulties, continue to serve the physical and spiritual needs of the Jewish communities in the areas dominated by the Nazi hordes. This conference express its sympathies to those living in Europe under present trying conditions and hopes for their speedy release from the horrors of Nazism today.”
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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.
