A budget of $10,102,154 for 1961, earmarked for programs of relief, rehabilitation and cultural and educational reconstruction in 30 countries around the world, was presented today by Jacob Blaustein, senior vice-president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, at the annual allocations session of its board of directors, held at the Jewish Agency for Israel. Over 150, 000 victims of nazism are expected to benefit from the funds. The allocations will raise to $80, 000, 000 in all, the sums granted by the Conference since 1954.
In presenting the budget, Mr. Blaustein sounded a warning that Conference funds are scheduled to end in four years, and that Jewish communities and central welfare organizations relying upon its grants “will be called upon to shoulder, in every growing measure, the costs of aid programs for Nazi victims.”
“Some 400 Jewish organizations have applied for grants this year calling for more than $20, 000, 000, all told, over twice the sum available for allocation,” Mr. Blaustein said. “Confronting those great demands is the inescapable fact that our funds are limited to some $10, 000, 000 per year and cannot be increased.”
Over three-fourths of the entire budget, coming to $7,789, 617, is earmarked for relief and rehabilitation programs. About 90 percent of those funds will be spent in Europe by Jewish communal and central welfare agencies and the American Joint Distribution Committee. Needs are most urgent in Europe, especially for the aged, the ill and the handicapped. Conference funds will also aid in the emigration of Nazi victims from that continent and their resettlement overseas, most notably in Australia and South America.
Allocations of $1, 904,037 will add five major programs in Jewish cultural and educational reconstruction, Mr. Blaustein stated. They include education, research and publication, scholarships and fellowships, upkeep of rabbinical schools and the commemoration and documentation of the era of Nazi persecution. The programs are addressed to the reconstruction of Jewish institutions and of spiritual and cultural centers ravaged at Nazi hands, and to the rehabilitation of scholars, editors, writers and teachers who are Nazi victims.
Jewish education, primary, secondary, higher and adult, the largest and most far ranging of the programs in this area, will receive allocations of $1, 032, 000. Allocations have climbed year by year to reach an eight-year peak in 1961, institutions in Europe making up the foremost group of beneficiaries. Nearly three-quarters of the outlays are scheduled for primary and secondary schools, and capital grants to enlarge their facilities will reach record proportions in 1961.
Mr. Blaustein pointed out that besides the direct grants for cultural and educational reconstruction, the budget for relief and rehabilitation includes grants of about $400, 000 to aid traditional educational and religious activities of communal organizations in Europe. Other allocations in that budget will aid in the creation of community and youth centers, and in the upkeep of summer camps and kindergartens not connected with schools, where Jewish cultural and educational activities will play a featured role.
The Claims Conference, made up of 23 national and worldwide Jewish organizations, obtains its funds for allocation under the special agreement it reached with the German Federal Government in 1952. By that agreement, $107, 000, 000 is being turned over to the Conference, in 12 annual installments, for the benefit of needy Nazi victims throughout the world.
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