The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith confirmed today reports they had decided to dissolve the Joint Defense Appeal, their joint fund-raising agency.
The dissolution will take effect December 31 and the two Jewish communal agencies will embark on separate fund-raising campaigns starting in 1963. Notification to this effect will be sent tomorrow to the Jewish communities throughout the United States.
The decision was made after the two organizations failed to agree on the question of distribution of the funds collected by the JDA which has conducted campaigns for the past 21 years. Each organization received an estimated $2,000,000 annually.
The American Jewish Committee contended it needed supplemental funds to carry out its overseas activities, apart from its domestic programs and it also insisted on the right to conduct its own fund-raising as it said was done by B’nai B’rith, the parent body of the ADL.
The ADL held that since the JDA was the provider for most of the programs of both agencies, the AJ Committee proposals would create a competitive situation with the JDA. The ADL said it provided $200,000 each year from its JDA income to B’nai B’rith youth services.
The B’nai B’rith said that apart from the $2,000,000 from the JDA to the ADL, B’nai B’rith raised $5,400,000 of which only 15 percent came from Jewish welfare funds.
The resumption of the first school year since the Supreme Court decision barring an official prayer in New York public schools was marked in many communities yesterday with readings from the Bible and recitations of the Lord’s Prayer.
Thousands of pupils in Massachusetts began the new school year with a reading from the Scriptures and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in accordance with a state law which directs that a Bible passage be read without comment.
School authorities in Maine said Scripture readings were held as usual in Portland and other cities in accordance with state law which calls for Scripture readings. That law specifies there must not be denominational or sectarian comment or teaching. Children are required to give respectful attention during that part of the school program but are free to follow their own forms of worship.
In Rhode Island, some public school pupils recited the Lord’s Prayer as in past years but others took part in silent prayer, depending on the decision of the teacher. In Levittown, L.I., the school board adopted a daily exercise which could include a recitation from the Bible. The action was taken despite an opinion of the board’s attorney that the decision was unconstitutional.
JESUIT WEEKLY TO REITERATE VIEW ON JEWS IN PRAYER ISSUE
Rev. Thurston N. Davis, editor-in-chief of the Jesuit weekly ‘America,’ said today that despite widespread criticism of an editorial in its September 1 issue–which asserted that Jewish support of court fights against religious practices in public schools was causing anti-Semitic reactions among Catholics–would take the same stand in an editorial in its September 15 issue.
He said the second editorial would “ask again whether the large Jewish agencies that are so much publicized in this whole controversy and which have been issuing comments really speak for the whole of the Jewish people.” He said editors of ‘America’ doubted this and added “in fact, we have very strong evidence from letters to us that they don’t.”
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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.
