B’nai B’rith Youth Leaders Leave for Germany on Exchange Program

An exchange program between West Germany and an American Jewish organization – the first of its kind – was initiated here today as a ten man group from B’nai B’rith and the Anti-Defamation League left Idlewild Airport for Bonn,

The group of human rights experts and youth leaders will tour major West German cities as guests of the Bonn government to study human relations problems at the grass roots levels. They will participate in seminars and meet with government and civic officials and youth and community leaders in Bonn, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and other cities, German communal and youth leaders will come to the United States at a later date. These visits will set the pattern for further exchanges.

Alexander F. Miller ADL national director of community services, headed the American group. The B’nai B’rith youth leaders in the group include Dr. Max Baer, national director of B’nai B’rith Youth Services; Harold Mondschein, Southern California regional director of the youth services; Sherwin M. Goldman, past international secretary of AZA, B’nai B’rith teen-age organization; Rabbi Harry Kaplan, director of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at Ohio State University; and Rabbi Maurice Pekarsky, director of the Hillel Foundation at the University of Chicago.

Before taking off, the group participated in a two-day seminar on current German political, social and human relations problems led by West German Consul General Dr. Federer and Benjamin R. Epstein, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

The program was announced last month, following prior consultations with American State Department officials, by Label A. Katz, president of B’nai B’rith, and Henry Edward Schultz, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League. They pointed out that “this is the first time an American Jewish agency has embarked on an exchange program with West Germany.”