Cjfwf Survey Shows Sharp Rise in Allocations for National, Overseas Jewish Agencies

Central fund raising agencies of American Jewish communities increased their allocations to national and overseas agencies from four percent to 75 percent in the last twenty years, while the proportion to local agencies declined sharply during the same period from 89 to 17 percent, according to a survey just completed by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.

In actual 1948 dollar disbursements, the overseas agencies received more than 200 times the amount allocated to them in 1929, while local agencies received two and one-third times the amount allocated in 1929, the survey revealed. These changes are related to the formation of central community welfare funds during the 1930’s, and the growing overseas needs which began during those years.

Analyzing the trends in volume of five fields of local service, the C.J.F.W.F. survey also found that there have been continuing increases in volume of activity in the expanding fields of homes for the aged and Jewish general hospitals. Service declines were shown in family service and clinic care. The report also noted that, despite a decline in child care services, a “sizeable increase” of needs in this field is anticipated. The survey cites two factors in evaluating the twenty-year changes in financing by welfare funds and federations:

1. By 1929, the organization of federations of local agencies raising funds for local needs was well established. In the period of the 1930’s, the impetus towards unified and centralized fund raising to include non-local agencies found expression in the organization of welfare funds. Survey figures reflect only the support offered by central agencies to affiliated non-local needs, and exclude monies raised in communities during the early thirties by many unaffiliated national and overseas agencies. These gradually became the recipients of allocations from the central bodies as they changed from independent fund raising to affiliate with centralized fund drives. Thus, the statistics do not reflect the actual net rise in national agency income, but mirror in part the change from independent to central communal financing.

2. The increasing urgency for the relief, rescue and rehabilitation of Jews in Europe and Israel, which absorbed the largest proportion of additional amounts raised by welfare funds. “The cumulative pressures of 20 years of depression, war, and postwar changes, coupled with the rapidly changing Jewish situation in Europe and Israel, find federations and welfare funds increasingly concerning themselves with the combined problem of the degree to which local services must be adjusted to cope with current needs, and the financial implications of such an adjustment,” the survey reported.

GIVES DATA ON SERVICES OF 29 JEWISH HOSPITALS; WARNS ON CHILD CARE

Reporting on the growth of Jewish hospital services, the survey found that the total days’ care given by the hospitals had risen by 46 percent during the 20-year period. It added that an “evident necessity” exists for expansion of hospital facilities. Combining figures for the 29 general hospitals throughout the nation, including those in New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, the report showed that in 1929 the total days’ care was 1,1981,584. By 1942, this figure had reached a peak of 2,897,175. Following a slight decline during the war years, the figure again approached the peals in 1948.

“These figures, perhaps more than any other statistics, underscore the magnitude of the problem facing those charged with responsibility for the administration of Jewish hospitals,” the report declared. “The evident necessity for expansion of existing plants poses in addition a problem for the welfare funds and federations, upon those resources the hospitals have been making increasing demands.”

In the field of child-care agencies, the survey showed that although there was national decline in the number of children under care in agencies from the peak year of 1937, the postwar figures show a decided increase. “The significance of these recent increases must not be underestimated,” the report warns. “It is in the ensuing years that the full impact of the increase in the birth rate will make itself felt; and the current increases in the number of children under the care of these agencies is only the beginning.”

Regarding family service agencies, the survey found that the volume of service from 1931-1948, “has fluctuated in accordance with the nation’s economy and its social security set-up.” Despite recent increases, it added, the volume has not reached the high point of 1933. Nationally, the pattern saw a rise between 1931 and 1933, then a steady decline until 1939, followed by a jump in 1940. The succeeding decline has been arrested since the end of the war and the volume has once again turned upward.