Fund for the Arts Set Up by National Foundation for Jewish Culture

The establishment of a first-time, nationwide program of yearly grants in support of creative Jewish expression and excellence to be given to individual American artists in all media, those exceptionally promising as well as established, was announced by Amos Comay of Pittsburgh, nationally prominent communal leader and business executive. He was elected president Sunday of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture (NFJC) at its annual board of directors meeting held at the Hotel Warwick.

Comay succeeds Earl Morse of New York. The NFJC, organized 18 years ago, provides assistance, guidance and support to agencies, organizations, institutions and activities through a broad range of programs, for the advancement of Jewish culture.

Grants to individual artists, according to the NFJC prospectus, will range from $5,000 to $12,500, in keeping with the circumstances of the artist and his/her project requirements. The first nationwide field of entries will be opened in spring, 1978; inaugural grants will be awarded that autumn. Grant disbursements totalling up to $250,000 each year are contemplated for an initial three-year phase of the program’s operation.

PIONEERING VENTURE OF JEWISH SPIRIT

Hailing the new grants program, officially designated as The Fund for the Arts, as “a pioneering venture of the Jewish spirit,” Comay noted that it was designed “to encourage and aid in the creation of new works that give fresh and powerful expression to the Jewish experience and milieu.”

Project applications by artists working in the following fields will be eligible: music, theater, dance, painting, sculpture, belles letters, film, television, photography; and museums. Applications will be reviewed by Selection Panels, composed of outstanding artists and practitioners in each of the relevant fields. Grants will not necessarily be made each year in all areas, Comay reported.

Financing for The Fund for the Arts, he emphasized, is currently being drawn, and will be sought as well in the future, exclusively from the private patron sector and from public and private foundations, and not from the organized Jewish community. It is anticipated that the NFJC initiative will qualify in time to receive matching financial support from federal agencies and state councils which recognize artistic creativity as a top national and communal priority.

PROGRAM CULMINATES 18-MONTH STUDY

Addressed to “the broad spectrum of Jewish creative energy in America ranging from prayer to protest to prophecy,” the arts program culminates an 18-month study by Comay who as NFJC vice-president headed a special Development Commission “that assessed the needs and considered lead options for channeling all–artists, patrons and public–with a vital stake in encouraging American artists to fresh contributions to Jewish cultural tradition.”

In a statement upon assuming the presidency of the NFJC, Comay commented on “a phenomenal merging in recent years of three outstanding currents which account for our present initiative in creating The Fund for the Arts.” He referred to “the emergence of new cadres of talented and aspiring young artists opting strongly for their Jewish ‘connection’–a generation in fact nurtured by the very Jewish studies programs and climate on campus across the nation that the NFJC was so instrumental in fostering these past 10 years.”

Julian Freeman, of Indianapolis, founding chairman of the agency and vice-president who, in the late 1950s, as president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, authorized the study which generated country-wide support for the creation of the NFJC, was unanimously elected by the board to its specially created post of National Honorary Chairman.

Comay is a member of the Board of Directors of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds and serves on the national executive bodies of the United Jewish Appeal and the Joint Distribution Committee. He is a member of the Jewish Agency Assembly, a trustee of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and serves on local boards of the Israel Bond Organization, America-Israel Cultural Foundation Chapter and Zionist Organization of America.