C.J.F.W.F. Assembly Discusses Promotion of Jewish Culture in U.S.

Establishment of a National Jewish Cultural Foundation to serve as a focus of American cultural activities was recommended here today at the 28th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds. The recommendation was contained in a summary of the national cultural study sponsored by the Council.

More than 1,000 Jewish leaders from over 100 cities throughout the United States and Canada are attending the four-day Assembly which opened today. Sidney Z. Vincent, study director, addressed the assemblage on the background and findings of the year-long study. Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee, presented the recommendations. Julian Freeman, of Indianapolis, past president of the Council and chairman of the Council Committee for the National Cultural Study, presided, Herbert R. Abeles of Newark, CJFWF president, opened the Assembly.

The Foundation would assist in interpreting the needs of individual agencies and the field as a whole to federations and welfare funds and to the entire community. It would assume responsibility for a system of scholarships and grants-in-aid “so crucial to the future well-being of the field.” It could secure gifts from interested individuals and foundations and thereby provide the means for greatly expanding operations of various agencies and in the field generally. The survey stressed that adequate safeguards had been provided to preserve the autonomy and to “promote the creativity of the individual agencies and to assure them a continuing and vital role.”

Dr. Shapiro, who was formerly national director of the Hillel Foundations, said the proposed Foundation would be composed of representatives of the 24 national Jewish cultural agencies involved in the study and would be invited to serve on a Council of Jewish Cultural Agencies, functioning as a central planning instrument for the field. The Council would be the arm of The Foundation for clearance and coordination among the agencies, and for pooling and exchange of ideas. The Foundation would undertake projects of a magnitude too great for individual agencies, would help fill unmet needs, establish priorities in scholarship and research, and stimulate activities in the field generally.

PROSPECTS FOR CULTURAL GROWTH CONSIDERED GOOD; GAPS ENUMERATED

In presenting the findings of the study Mr. Vincent, who is assistant director of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, observed that the most hopeful aspect of the cultural study was the emerging optimism of a resurgence of Jewish cultural activities in America.

“We believe that the prospects of a dynamic cultural growth in America are vastly better than they were a generation ago,” he said, “and that the most pressing immediate need is to forge a union between scholar and layman, between agency and community, to replace the false dichotomies that have grown up between them. Their joined insights and know-how can provide the basis for an American Jewish community of doers and thinkers–a community that will take its place with Babylonia and Spain and destroyed Europe as creative centers of Jewish life in the Diaspora.”

However, Mr. Vincent said, there were serious gaps in the four areas surveyed; Jewish archives, publication resources, research and scholarship. Many important cultural treasures are in danger of being irretrievably lost through lack of funds, he said. Equally important, publications, research and studies are prevented from continuing for lack of funds or, if they continue, do so at the expense of the scholars who are paid, if at all, barely enough to exist. He complained of the lack of “risk capital” in publishing, so vital to the scholar.

“The valuation we have placed on the fields of scholarship and research has been so low and opportunities for careers have been so limited that for all practical purposes we have had no organized profession of Jewish scholarship, such as has been created in the fields of the rabbinate and social work,” he said.

Despite this, there have been encouraging signs, Mr. Vincent added. “There is unquestionably an awakened interest in archives and the beginnings of a determined effort to recapture the records of the past before they slip forever into oblivion,” he said. “More Jewish books are being published in more fields than ever before and there has been an unmistakable difference in attitude towards the scholar.”

The times are changing, Mr. Vincent declared. “We are entering into a period of vastly increased competition for brains. The natural sciences and the social sciences, the humanities and the arts will all more effectively seek to attract the best of our young people. There will be no standing still for Jewish culture in such a competitive atmosphere; we will either accept the challenge and vigorously increase the attractions for scholars to enter fields of Jewish interest or we will lose our young men at an increased rate to other, more attractive pursuits.”

1,000 JEWISH SOCIAL WORK POSITIONS ARE NOT FILLED IN U. S.

Addressing a General Assembly workshop, Mrs. Louis Oresman of New York reported that 1,000 Jewish social work positions were presently unfilled in the United States and added that “the shortage is real and immediate in virtually every community.” She

She reported that 31 Jewish communities were already subscribers to the CJFWF national scholarship plan which provides modest one-time grants from communities ranging from $300 to $750, according to the size of the community. The communities then draw on the fund on a matching principle: the community and the fund each provide half of the money for each scholarship, doubling available resources for training Jewish communal workers.

She said the grants average $1,500 to $2,000 annually and that CJFWF leaders expect the plan to provide between 40 and 50 scholarships. Recipients commit themselves to work for Jewish communal agencies after graduation.

Charles I. Schottland, dean of the Social Welfare School at Brandeis University, told the delegates that Jewish communities have “the obligation and the opportunity” to end the bottleneck. He said four approaches should be used: “improved training, increased scholarship opportunities, opening of new field work placements for schools and interpreting the need for the best quality students.”