Appeal Drive Launched by 2,500 Tonight

The official opening of the United Jewish Appeal campaign for $1,200,000 in New York will be launched tonight at the Hotel Commodore, when 2,500 men and women, including outstanding leaders of American Jewry, inaugurate the country-wide $3,000,000 drive to aid the victims of the Hitler terror.

Leaders in every activity and in every borough of the city are represented on the committee sponsoring the fund-raising effort, which is headed nationally by Felix M. Warburg and in New York by I. Edwin Goldwasser, Nathan Straus Jr. and Ira M. Younker. The United Jewish Appeal represents the Joint Distribution Committee and the American Palestine Campaign, the two major Jewish agencies dealing with the relief of German Jewry.

MCDONALD ADDRESS FROM EUROPE

An address from the Hotel Excelsior in Rome by James G. McDonald, League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, will be telephoned directly to the dinner-meeting as part of the speaking program, Felix M. Warburg, Nathan Straus Jr., Mrs. Roger W. Straus, chairman of the Women’s Division of the drive; Michael Schaap, chairman of the Trades Council; I. Edwin Goldwasser, Dr. Judah L. Magnes, Chancellor of the Hebrew University in Palestine; Prof. Raymond T. Moley, Editor of Today; Morris Rothenberg, Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, Paul Baerwald and Louis Lipsky will address the gathering. The last four are co-chairmen of the national United Jewish Appeal.

The funds made available to the Joint Distribution Committee will be used for Jews in Germany, for refugees outside of Germany, and for the maintenance of activities in Eastern and Central Europe that the Committee has sponsored since 1914. The share of the American Palestine Campaign will be transmitted to the Central Bureau for the Settlement of German Jews in Palestine, which is headed by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, former president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and to the Palestine Foundation Fund, which has been mainly responsible for the reconstruction of Palestine since 1921.

COOPERATE WITH GERMAN BODY

The work of the Joint Distribution Committee in Germany is done in cooperation with the Central Committee of German Jews for Relief and Reconstruction. Its funds are used to aid Jews to reeducate themselves for vocational occupations, train thousands of Jewish youths to acquire proficiency in manual trades and agriculture, advance credits or free loans to Jewish merchants and tradesmen who are denied ordinary credit facilities, establish, enlarge and support Jewish elementary schools for children, help maintain communal relief and welfare institutions, and facilitate the orderly emigration of German Jews to various countries.

The funds obtained by the American Palestine Campaign that are devoted to German aid are expended by the Central Bureau for the Settlement of German Jews in Palestine, which has offices in London, Berlin and Jerusalem. The director of the Central Bureau in Palestine is Dr. Arthur Ruppin, noted agronomist and social statistician. The youth and welfare phases of immigration activities are under the direction of Miss Henrietta Szold, noted American Jewish woman leader, who founded Hadassah, Women’s Zionist Organization of America.

PERSONNEL OF CAMPAIGN

Dr. Cyrus Adler, Governor Herbert H. Lehman, Judge Julian W. Mack, Joseph M. Proskauer and Dr. Stephen S. Wise are the honorary chairmen of the National United Jewish Appeal; Felix M. Warburg, chairman; Paul Baerwald, Louis Lipsky, Morris Rothenberg and Jonah B. Wise, co-chairmen; Nathan Straus Jr., treasurer, and Joseph C. Hyman, honorary secretary.

The dinner tonight will be the signal for the launching of a series of meetings, dinners and other functions throughout the five boroughs until June 15, when the campaign is scheduled to be completed. Some 3,500 workers, men and women, have volunteered their services to engage in an intensive city-wide canvass so that, as a minimum, New York’s quota of $1,200,000 will be raised.