The first central organization for recruiting and training personnel for Jewish communal service, the Bureau for Careers in Jewish Service, has been created by 30 major national agencies in the United States and Canada to overcome a critical shortage of professional personnel affecting all of the major Jewish services. The organization was established here yesterday with the naming of temporary officers and a permanent executive director at the first meeting of the board of directors. Acting officers are Howard Rubin, of Boston, president; David Weingard, of New York, treasurer, and Philip Bernstein, of New York, secretary. Manheim S. Shapiro, for 17 years an executive of the American Jewish Committee, was named executive director.
The new Bureau will be housed in the offices of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, the central organization for 222 Jewish communities in the United States and Canada, providing service and consultation on community planning, fund raising and welfare. The new Bureau will be concerned with the total field of Jewish service, including all types of social services and fund-raising, Jewish scholarship and research, the rabbinate and administrative and other professional personnel of synagogues, community relations, Jewish education and Jewish journalism.
The Bureau will interpret to potential workers the agencies and institutions which serve the Jewish community – and the general community – under Jewish auspices. It will work with and through the member organizations and in close cooperation with educational institutions. The Bureau will be funded in part by the 30 agencies that founded it and by foundation grants.
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