Relief and rehabilitation needs in Europe and social welfare programs in the United States will require close to $300,000,000 in 1947, it was reported today at the concluding session of the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds.
The report was made by Sidney S. Cohen, executive director of the Boston Combined Jewish Appeal. He pointed out that the 268 member agencies of the Council will be called upon to supply 95 percent of this “astronomical” sum through their federation and welfare fund campaigns this year.
The concluding session also discussed various means of combatting anti-Semitism in this country. Bernard H. Trager, of Pittsburgh, secretary of the National Community Relations Advisory Council, informed the delegates that his group is planning court action to test the constitutionality of restrictive real estate agreements.
“The presence of restrictive clauses in real estate deeds is fairly widespread and apparently spreading,” he said. “Of all the forms of discrimination to which Jews are subjected I doubt that any impinges more closely upon the basic rights of all persons to equal citizenship.”
Mr. Trager also emphasized that discrimination by educational institutions has become intensified during the past year. “The return of veterans in large numbers with prior claims upon available educational facilities was accompanied by many evidences of growing discrimination in admissions against Jews and other minorities,” he said. He also discussed the problem presented to the Jewish community by the introduction of religious instruction into the public school system.
STATE LAWS BARRING EDUCATIONAL BIAS SOUGHT BY JEWISH GROUPS
The member organizations of the NCRAC, which include the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish War Veterans, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, are now working to secure state legislation against discrimination in admissions by educational institutions on grounds of race, creed or national origin, Mr. Trager reported. Advocacy of a state university for New York is also a part of their program. The support for the movement for permanent fair employment practices legislation is also an integral part of their work “in the struggle to secure federal legislative safeguards against discrimination in employment,” he added.
Irving Kane of Cleveland, speaking on the same subject, emphasized that Jewish agencies are concerned with the violation of civil liberties of all people. “This trend,” he said, “acknowledges the direct relationship between discrimination against Jews and other groups. I am sure that enlightened people everywhere will have no difficulty in accepting the proposition that anti-Semitism is not an isolated phenomenon.”
Reports on the activities of the United Service for New Americans and on the entry of displaced Jews to the United States were made last night at the general session by William Rosenwald, honorary president of USNA, and Mrs. Irving M. Engel of New York, chairman of the USNA board. Mr. Rosenwald reported that January saw the largest immigration of displaced persons and refugees to the United States since Pearl Harbor, an estimated 2,000 arriving from American-occupied zones of Europe, from Shanghai and other parts of the world.
Mrs. Engel declared that the entry of 400,000 refugees and displaced persons into the United States as proposed by Earl Harrison, former U.S. Commissioner for Immigration and Naturalization, would find the voluntary welfare agencies, including USNA, ready with a complete program for the speedy adjustment and Americanization of the newcomers without expense to the public.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
