J.D.C. Adopts $28,775,000 Budget for 1961; Warburg Re-elected Chairman

Edward M.M. Warburg was tonight re-elected chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee for the 16th successive year at the 46th annual meeting of the organization which was attended by 400 delegates from all parts of the country. The meeting adopted a budget of $28,775,000 for JDC’s aid program in 1961.

The largest single item in the budget–$10,000,000–is for the JDC’s work on behalf of aged, ill and handicapped newcomers to Israel. It is estimated that more than 300,000 men, women and children in 25 countries overseas will need JDC assistance in the coming year. The delegates also voted a resolution pledging full support of the United Jewish Appeal campaign for 1961.

Mr. Warburg, addressing the delegates, dealt especially with the “miracle” achieved by Jewish communities in Western Europe. “It has taken 15 difficult years for these scattered communities, but now they are testimony to Hitler’s final defeat,” he said. “Where once there was rubble and ruin, where once there was only a handful of survivors, there are now communities again, communities which once more have a future.”

He cited the recent establishment of the Standing Conference on European Jewish Communal Services by representatives of 14 countries, a body through which the Jewish communities of Western Europe will have an opportunity to exchange experiences, and to discuss standards of aid and service. In addition, he noted the establishment and re-establishment of Jewish community institutions, notably the opening in recent months of the first post-war Jewish school in Athens, Greece; and a new mental hospital in The Netherlands.

J.D.C. AID IN RESTORING JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN EUROPE STRESSED

“This rebuilding would not have been possible without the continuing assistance of the JDC and the American Jewish community through the United Jewish Appeal.” Mr. Warburg said. “These communities would be the first to tell you that this is not only their triumph but yours as well. They would tell you that what they have achieved is a monument to man’s humanity to man.”

Despite these notable advances in Western Europe. Mr. Warburg pointed out that the JDC still bears major responsibility for aiding hundreds of thousands of needy Jews “under difficult circumstances” in Eastern Europe, and in Moslem countries. “For them, the achievements in Western Europe serve as testimony that they too will not be forgotten. For them, we must serve as the candle of hope in the darkness of uncertainty and fear,” he declared.

Moses A. Leavitt, JDC executive vice-chairman, who returned recently from a survey in the Congo, Rhodesia, South Africa and other countries, predicted that “during the coming decade, conflict will be the rule rather than the exception” in Africa. He noted that Africa actually consists of three sub-continents–the Moslem lands of North Africa, the great central mass of Black Africa, including both colonial and newly independent nations; and South Africa in a category by itself.

Turning his attention to the Jewish population of the African continent, Mr. Leavitt pointed out that by far the largest number–nearly 400,000–lives in Morocco and other North African countries. “In these countries, the deteriorating economic situation, which followed on the heels of independence, has brought mounting insecurity to a Jewish population which has lived in North Africa for many centuries. The unresolved conflict in Algeria, in particular, may well bring new hardships during the months ahead.”

Many of the Jews in Central Africa, he indicated, have been refugees for a good part of their lives. A few thousand reached the Congo and other areas during World War II, seeking a haven from the advance of nazism. Even in the face of the Congo riots, many were reluctant to leave, although some have already resettled in Israel, South America, South Africa and other countries.

EVERY FIFTH JEW IN MOSLEM LANDS IS A J.D.C. BENEFICIARY

Charles H. Jordan, JDC director-general for overseas operations, told the delegates, in presenting the 1961 budget, that about 150,000 of those who will need JDC aid in 1961 will be reached through normal JDC programs in Europe, as well as through relief to Jews in transit.

He reported that one out of every five Jews in North Africa and Iran was a beneficiary of the JDC, many of them children. He said that in Israel, the JDC would provide services to some 60,000 persons. The handicapped, the aged and the chronically sick among them will be helped through the Malben-JDC program. Others will benefit through JDC support of yeshivahs and help to refugee rabbis, cantors and other religious functionaries. Still others will be helped through the ORT vocational training programs.

Sol Satinsky, of Philadelphia, who was re-elected chairman of the JDC national council, stressed in his report to the delegates that in everything JDC does, it carries out the will of the American Jewish community. “But,” he declared, “if it is through us that the communities make clear their support for the work and the programs of the JDC, then the reverse side of the same coin is our own obligation to the communities in which we live.

“If we are the voice of the communities in the councils of the JDC and the United Jewish Appeal, we are the voice–in our communities–of the children of the mellahs of North Africa, the aged in Israel, the refugees in France, the sick and the needy and the helpless in 25 countries.”