B’nai B’rith Approves Three Percent Budget Cut; Assails Jdl for Harassment Pledge

The B’nai B’rith Board of Governors approved today a 1971 budget of $16.7 million–a 3 percent drop from last year’s record $17.25 million. It was the first time in several decades that the organization had decreased its budget. The 1971 budget, however, equals last year’s actual expenditures, there having been a 7.5 percent midyear scissoring of some programs and administrative activities because of the economic recession, cost inflation, and emergency campaigns for the United Jewish Appeal and Israel Bonds. Of the 1971 budget, 41 percent–or $6.85 million–was allotted for the organization’s three special youth programs–the B’nai B’rith Youth Organizations, the B’nai B’rith Vocational Service and the Hillel Clubs. The 1970 budget allotted 43 percent–or $7.42 million–for the youth programs, but because of the midyear cuts only around $6.85 million was actually spent. B’nai B’rith president William A. Wexler explained today that “The cutback enabled us to squeeze through the past year without a deficit,” and was “a prudent approach to current uncertainties and to avoid deficit financing.” It means, he added “holding the line for a while, notwithstanding the needs and pressures for expanded programming, until, in accord with our long-range prospects, the financial picture improves.” In another move, the board launched a drive to raise $1 million from 200 major contributors for a fund in honor of Dr. Wexler, who will leave the presidency at year’s end.

The B’nai B’rith board, reacting to the Jewish Defense League’s pledge yesterday to “follow, question and harass” Soviet personnel in New York, adopted a resolution terming this a “morally reprehensible and politically self-defeating” decision that “endangers the cause of Soviet Jewry.” Such “lunatic-fringe action of an unrepresentative, notoriety-seeking group” will give the Kremlin a “pretext for its own misdemeanors,” the board charged. It called again for “peaceful dissent” to the Soviet policies of “discrimination and repression” against the country’s Jews. The Jewish leaders also called on President Nixon and Congress to “consider” approving a Lend Lease aid program between the United States and Israel–a proposal advanced several weeks ago by former Ambassador W. Averell Harriman–and urged United Nations mediator Gunnar V. Jarring to help effect an extension of the Middle East truce. The board received yesterday a study, prepared by Joshua Rothenberg of Brandeis University, that concludes that Soviet Jews were better off in the days of the Czars than they are today. Rothenberg, specialist in East European Jewish Affairs, said Soviet Jews in Czarist days had “four fundamental freedoms of religious activity”–the freedom to worship in a synagogue, practice religious rites, foster religious education and publish religious material. Those conditions no longer exist, he observed.