More than 1,000 active leaders of the Jewish community here today set out to prove to the rest of the nation that Boston’s Jewry could keep abreast of it in the matter of raising funds for charity.
Spurred on by a stirring address by Rabbi Samuel H. Goldenson of Temple Emanu-El, New York, before 1,200 listeners at a dinner last night at the Hotel Statler, the workers began a two-week campaign to fill a quota of $575,000 set by the Associated Jewish Philanthropies.
At the dinner itself, $204,462, almost half of the quota, was pledged.
“We must remember,” Dr. Goldenson said last night, “that the first New Deal in civilization was fashioned by the prophets of Israel. Had the Jew of today forgotten those dark, gloomy days in Egypt, in Spain, in Poland, we never would have had that kind of God, that kind of history, we would never have come together this night in Boston to be mindful of those who are now in need, who are waiting for us to answer their cry.”
“You will,” he concluded, “because this rich past of our commands us. You will give because you come from a people of martyrs.”
A message expressing confidence in Boston Jewry’s ability to fulfill its responsibility was sent to the dinner by Governor Joseph B. Ely.
Mortimer C. Gryzmish was chairman of the dinner. He presented Louis E. Kirstein, president of the Associated, as chairman of the evening.
Among the speakers were Sidney Rabinovitz, general chairman of the campaign; Mrs. Hyman Freiman, chairman of the women’s division; Dr. Charles F. Wilinsky, director of the Beth Israel Hospital; Judge Abraham E. Pinanski, Gabriel M. Stern and Rabbi Beryl D. Cohon of Temple Israel, who delivered the invocation.
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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.
