International Organization of Jewish Social Workers Proposed

A committee preparatory to the creation of an international organization of Jewish social workers was set up at a reception tendered by the Central Welfare Agency of the Jews in Germany for the Jewish delegates to the Eighth International Conference for Social Work that is now in progress here.

The idea was warmly welcomed by the Israel delegate to the conference, Mrs. Charlotte Karfiol of Israelis Ministry of Social Welfare. Dr. George W. Rabinoff, of the non-sectarian U.S. National Social Welfare Assembly, who was instrumental in making the arrangements for the American delegation to the conference; Dr. Henry Selver, director of the Paul Baerwald School of Jewish Social Work, which is sponsored in Paris by the Joint Distribution Committee; and Dr. Berthold Simonsohn, head of the central Welfare Agency of the Jews in Germany. Other committee members are yet to be named, notably from Great Britain, North Africa and, if possible, Eastern Europe.

In welcoming the gathering, Dr. Simonsohn recalled that in 1932, just before the advent of Hitlerism, the then Central Welfare Agency of German Jews had given a similar reception for Jewish delegates to the Second International Conference for Social Work, which was held in Frankfurt. Plans to establish an international professional organization were mooted at that time already, the speaker explained, but they were thwarted by the Nazi holocaust which, before it ran its course, had completely upset the structure, composition and social needs of European Jewry. The new situation had merely enhanced the desirability of an international professional forum, Dr. Simonsohn said, and expressed the hope that the gathering might lead to its formation.

The preliminary committee decided at its initial meeting to ask all Jewish welfare organizations throughout the world for their ideas about the possibilities of setting up such an international body.