The 40th annual meeting of the Joint Distribution Committee, attended by 500 Jewish leaders from all parts of the country, today adopted a budget of $29,403,000 for JDC relief and reconstruction activities in 1955. The budget represents an increase of nearly $4,000,000 over 1954 expenditures by the agency. Nearly one-half of it will be spent on JDC operations in Israel.
Edward M.M. Warburg, who was re-elected chairman of the JDC for the tenth successive year, addressing the delegates, said that JDC relief and other programs are today “more meaningful than ever.” He called upon American Jewry for “continued support” of the task of aiding needy Jews throughout the world, and stressed the fact that not only are needs diminishing, but at this moment only the JDC is able to provide the aid which is vitally needed.
“This is true of the extraordinary work being done by JDC in North Africa, an area which threatens to become more and more dangerous in terms of the Jewish community there,” he declared. “It is true of the heartwarming work of Malben, where the standards which JDC has established with this unique welfare program continue to be a glowing chapter of our generation’s social engineering.” He pointed continue to be a glowing chapter of our generation’s social engineering.” He pointed out that in 40 years JDC aid has gone out to more than three-and-a-half million Jews in 72 countries.
HARRIMAN HITS AMERICAN RESTRICTIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY
Governor-elect Averell Harriman, addressing the Jewish leaders at the Fortieth Anniversary Founders’ Dinner of the JDC, said that “the continuation of our restrictive immigration policy is not only morally evil; it is, from the point of view of our gaining friends in the battle for democracy, a stupid blunder.” Mr. Harriman noted that the number of actual refugees and escapees who have been admitted to the United States under the Refugee Relief Act is “minuscule.” “I can only hope that in its coming session the Congress of the United States will review and drastically review and drastically revise the McCarran-Walter Act, and the Refugee Relief Act too,” he said.
Mr. Harriman paid tribute to the Joint Distribution Committee as an organization which is “synonymous with constructive humanitarianism,” and whose “name I have heard uttered with affection and almost with reverence by those who have been the beneficiaries of its activities. Your work over the past 40 years bears testimony to what democracy at its best can achieve.”
Eighteen of JDC’s founders, including leaders in government, labor and community activities, received citations from Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, a JDC vice-chairman, at the Founders’ Dinner. Paul Baerwald, JDC honorary chairman and former JDC chairman and treasurer, who spoke on behalf of all of the founders honored at the JDC dinner, declared that “the record of the JDC and the approval which is accorded to its work, give all of us the fullest confidence in its continued ability to render service.
“I think,” Mr. Baerwald continued, “that I can sum up the reasons for JDC’s coming into being, the reasons for its continued existence, the reasons for the extra-ordinary efforts which it has evoked and undertaken during the course of events–I can sum them up in three words: it was necessary. In the same way as I look back on my own association with JDC, during all of the events of wars, disasters and crises, I think that my part, too, was just doing the things that were necessary.”
Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman of the JDC, told the guests at the dinner that “much still remains to be done” in JDC’s efforts on behalf of needy and harrassed Jews overseas. Noting that the 40-year period during which JDC has existed “has, for the Jews of the world, witnessed the greatest tragedy of their 4,000 years of tragic history, “Mr. Leavitt said: “The JDC is the organized expression of the will, primarily of the American Jewish community, to help suffering, persecuted and underprivileged Jews to regain their dignity, their economic independence, their full religious and cultural lives.”
DR. SCHWARTZ ASKS “A FUTURE WITHOUT FEAR” FOR NEEDY JEWS
Pointing out that “American Jewry has always understood the problems and the needs overseas,” Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, JDC director-general on leave and UJA executive vice-chairman, called upon the American Jewish community to assess for itself, during the coming year, the total picture of needs both here and abroad. “I am certain,” he said, “that out of such an analysis will come that support for JDC and for the United Jewish Appeal which will guarantee to all those in need of our aid not only survival but a future without fear.”
Moses W. Beckelman, director-general for JDC overseas operations, told the delegates that among those urgently requiring JDC aid in 1955 will be: 1. Some 90,000 Jews in Moslem countries where, even if anti-Jewish outbreaks do not occur, JDC must extend its programs; 2. Some 40,000 persons in Israel, who must continue to receive institutional care and reconstruction aid, or who must be provided with vocational training and cultural, religious and educational assistance; 3. Some 30,000 in Europe, including thousands of disabled refugees and their dependents, to whom virtually all emigration opportunities have been barred.
Morris Laub, JDC assistant secretary, cited JDC’s “partnership with other groups” in providing aid to the needy in many countries. “Partnership and cooperation have been traditional with JDC from its inception,” he declared. Among the organizations which Mr. Laub cited was the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, from which JDC received some $6,780,000 during 1954 for its programs on behalf of victims of Nazi persecution. Close working agreements have also been reached by JDC with international and local organizations in the fields of medical aid, educational assistance, emigration and economic reconstruction, he noted.
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