J.D.C. Accepted Mediation Recommendations, U.p.a. Rejected Them, Shroder Report Reveals

Referring to the statement released by the United Palestine Appeal yesterday, that the Joint Distribution Committee had rejected “anything resembling arbitration”, Joseph C. Hyman, Executive Vice-Chairman of the JDC, today declared that the JDC, in an effort to prevent the dissolution of the National United Jewish Appeal, had not only been willing to submit its unresolved differences with the UPA to Arbitration, but that it had previously accepted the recommendations made by a mediation committee appointed by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds in Cincinnati on February 10th, and that these recommendations were rejected by the United Palestine Appeal.

Mr. Hyman referred to the telegram sent this week by Paul Baerwald, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, to Sidney Hollander, President of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, agreeing to submit to arbitration, the unresolved questions which are at issue in order to reconstitute the dissolved United Jewish Appeal. He also quoted from the stenographic report of William J. Shroder on behalf of the Committee of Mediation appointed by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, in Cincinnati, at a meeting of the Board of Directors on February 10th-11th, to mediate differences between JDC and UPA.

“Your Committee,” Mr. Shroder reported, “recommended consideration by the two agencies of what we considered a fair compromise. The terms were – $17,500,900 for the original allotment, to be divided on a 60-40 basis; the balance to be subject to allotment by the Allotment Committee; the $600,000 drawback from the JNF to be abandoned – no drawback; and the ceiling on JNF at $1,100,000. These terms are acceptable to the Joint Distribution Committee, but were not acceptable to the United Palestine Appeal.”

Mr. Shroder pointed out in his report to the Council that “the United Palestine Appeal representatives, who of course were speaking for themselves and not for their organization, felt that the monetary considerations were not the most important considerations to them.”

“I wanted the meeting to know”, he stated, “of the thinking of the United Palestine Appeal, which was that this arrangement prevented them from, because of the restrictions due to the fact that it was a united appeal, prevented them from making 100 percent use of their campaign in an educational process on the values and comparative values of the Palestine development in the entire world Jewish picture. And for that reason they felt they would be happier in an independent campaign where there were no restrictions whatsoever on their complete exposition of the world situation and its effect on palestine. So that to them the dollars and sents provision was not the matter of extreme importance, although they might be governed by it and it would have an influance.

It was the opinion that the past relationship had not been a happy one. I think that opinion was shared more or less by both organizations. There were several years in which it was abandoned, since it was begun in 1930, And each year, by the protracted negotiations and the situations that developed, it was apparent that the marriage was not one of complete happiness but rather one of mutual concession and some irritation. And they felt that they would be happier outside of this united campaign.

That is the substance. I think that each side is sincere in its position. I think the JDC, in its acceptance of the Committee’s propesition – in fact, they did a little more than accept the Committee’s proposition, because the original Committee’s proposition is for a million-dollar ceiling (on JNF traditional collections) and JDC volunteered to make it what it was before, a $1,100,000. I think JDC felt that it would go as far as it could to keep the thing alive, but it couldn’t go as far as the United Palestine Appeal wished them to go, to make the preposition in any way desirable to the United Palestine Appeal.”