B’nai B’rith Adopts $12,105,672 Budget for 1967; 44% for Youth Work

B’nai B’rith today adopted a budget totaling $12,105,672 for 1967 and allocated 44 percent of it — a record $5,320,000 — for cultural and educational youth activities.

Despite a $435,000 increase for its teen-through-college age activities which now serve some 175,000 Jewish youths, Rabbi Jay Kaufman, executive vice-president of B’nai B’rith, said that the budget allows for only “minimal growth” and does not “match strides” with increases in the Jewish youth population and “the greater receptivity of Jewish youth to organized Jewish activities.”

Rabbi Kaufman expressed “disappointment” with allocations granted B’nai B’rith youth programs by Jewish federations and welfare funds which, he said, accounted for 22.3 percent of B’nai B’rith youth expenditures in 1952, but have proportionately decreased to less than 12.5 percent by 1965. In the same period, B’nai B’rith had a 250 percent growth in the cost of its youth work, he stated.

The budget was adopted here at a meeting of the B’nai B’rith board of governors which, among its resolutions, appealed to the United States to create “the conditions for a cease-fire in Vietnam.” The resolution on that subject noted that President Johnson “has vigorously though vainly pursued the paths of peace” and urged that the U.S. Government take action “in concert with the United Nations” to move toward a halt in the Vietnam shooting war.

“B’nai B’rith,” the resolution declared, “finds itself torn between the desperate desire to see the war end and the realization that premature withdrawal by the allied forces in South Vietnam would open South Vietnam to the rule of might and not right or the will of the people.” The measure noted approvingly that “the right of free expression and open dissent has remained untrammeled.” It added that American initiative toward a cease-fire must take into account a need for safeguards by the United Nations and the major powers that small nations “would be sheltered from the incursions of aggression.”

MAY ESTABLISH B’NAI B’RITH BRANCH IN SPAIN UNDER PROPOSED LAWS

The possibility of establishing a branch of the B’nai B’rith in Spain when that country’s constitutional reforms and proposed laws on religious freedom are enacted and put into practice was indicated last night by Dr. William Wexler, B’nai B’rith president, addressing the Board of Governors.

He said he was “encouraged by the indications” that the prospective legislation “will provide a legal basis, supported and protected by the state, for Spain’s Jews to practice Judaism, individually and as a community, freely and openly.” The effect of the reforms, he said, “can end the isolation of Spain’s 8,000 Jews from the “spiritual and cultural interplay of the Jewish world.”

The proposed laws, covering non-Catholics, would provide Spanish Jewry with the right to own and maintain “identifiable” synagogues and other communal institutions, conduct Jewish marriages, burials and other rituals with full legal sanction, and engage in Jewish educational and cultural pursuits. Dr. Wexler had visited the country in October. He said that Spanish Jews active in synagogal affairs had advised him of their interest in establishing formal affiliation with B’nai B’rith which is currently active in 45 countries.

The Board of Governors adopted a resolution calling upon “the major powers and the United Nations” to treat the Middle East crisis “with utmost urgency” and prevent frictions in the region from mounting into a major conflict. It urged that both elements the leading powers and the U.N. — vigorously move for direct negotiations between the Arab states and Israel, and “the exploration and application of any other acceptable means” of achieving peace and solving the region’s problems.