Endowment Funds Reported Up to $70, 000, 000; Shroder Awards Given

A dramatic rise in the endowment funds of Jewish federations in 12 large cities was reported at the CJFWF’s General Assembly here by Henry L. Zucker, of Cleveland. He said that, in the last 15 years, the book value of such funds had increased from $22, 000, 000 to nearly $70,000,000.

The 12 cities included Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and St. Louis.

At the Assembly banquet, last night, Louis J. Fox, of Baltimore, paid tribute to 102 individuals who have joined as charter participants in the CJFWF Legacies and Endowment Fund. The fund will be used to help finance urgently needed studies and research publications and other special projects which the Council has been unable to undertake within its budget.

The 1964 William J. Shroder Memorial Awards, for “superior initiative and achievement in the advancement of social welfare” were also presented at the banquet. The winners of the coveted award were the Sinai Hospital Aging Center of Baltimore, and the Louisville Section of the National Council of Jewish Women.

Guest speaker at the banquet was Michael Harrington, chairman-elect of the board of the League for Industrial Democracy, who spoke on “poverty in affluence,” The banquet was presided over by Stanley C. Myers of Miami.

EMPLOYMENT DISLOCATIONS SEEN AFFECTING JEWISH JOB HOLDERS

A great many young Jewish men and women, coming out of college, will be compelled to change careers several times in the course of their work lives, if the rate of employment dislocation and readjustment accelerates, Jerome M. Comar, president of the Vocational Research Council of the Jewish Vocational Service of Chicago, told the Assembly at an earlier session.

He stressed that rapidly-changing scientific and technological advances increasingly are forcing people in this country in general to seek employment in fields entirely unrelated to jobs held over a period of years. He noted that there was considerable evidence that refinements in automation alone would step up the pace of manpower redistribution in this country.

Citing the experience of Jewish vocational agencies located in 21 major American and Canadian Cities, he reported that job counseling and retraining of technologically-displaced workers above the age of 50 was increasing substantially–with large numbers of younger men and women beginning to seek agency assistance.

Dr. Morton I Teicher, dean of the Wurzweiler School of Social Work of Yeshiva University of New York, called for establishment of a National Jewish Manpower Commission to help solve the current shortage of professional personnel in Jewish communal service. He suggested that a redistribution of manpower would help solve some of these shortages, and noted that the proposed national commission, with local counterparts, would serve to consolidate and coordinate existing resources. He asserted that, in order to succeed, Jewish social planning must take into account the existing “personnel crisis.”

PROGRAMS PROPOSED TO INTENSIFY RESEARCH, TRAIN EXECUTIVES

Prof, Moshe Davis, head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, addressing another session, said that individual Jewish communities have developed different emphases on Jewish affiliation, a plethora of Jewish commnnal forms, and a variety of ideologies and changing approaches to meet the emerging needs of Jews on the world scene.

To understand these relationships, Dr. Davis recommended the formation of three programs. These would entail the development of Institutes of Contemporary Jewish Research in four geographic areas; the training of executive personnel for world Jewish tasks; and the formation of study groups and in-service courses.