J.w.b. Parley Told More Money, Increased Membership Available to Jewish Centers

The two-day annual meeting of the National Jewish welfare Board’s Jewish Center Division Committee concluded here today after the reelection of Philip M. Klutznick of Chicago as chairman of the body, through which the J.W.B. operates as the national association of Jewish Community Centers and YM-YWEA’s.

Pointing out that more money than ever before is being allocated from current combined United Jewish Appeal and local Jewish welfare fund campaigns to the maintenance of local and regional Jewish communal services in the U.S., S.D. Gershovitz, executive director of the J.W.B., revealed last night that upwards of $70,000,000 has thus far been raised for this purpose. Other factors in Jewish community planning cited by Gershovitz as having broad implications for the Jewish community center movement were the splurge of all-encompassing plans for organizing the national Jewish community, and the thrust forward of the revitalized religious elements and groups in the American Jewish community.

Expenditures for center work, Sanford Solender, director of the Center Division, disclosed, increased to $10,290,000 in 1948, a rise of 44 percent over 1945. This increase enabled centers not only to meet rising costs but to expand and intensify their programming for all age groups, to extend their services into unserved areas and to broaden their community-wide activities. The activities of the Jewish Center Division, Solender declared, “reflected the trends of the field and at the same time have stimulated their development.”

At the end of 1948 total Jewish Center membership was 468,000, a rise of 10 percent since the end of the war, Solender reported. In addition, greatly increased numbers have been affected by community-wide Center services such as Jewish youth councils, program services to adult and youth organizations, Jewish Book and Music Councils and camping services, Solender pointed out.

“With the emptying of the DP camps in Europe, the greater stabilization and security of the state of Israel and the setting up of long range plans for servicing Jews in oriental communities overseas there is a strong likelihood that there will be a diminishing call for continuance of high goals for overseas purposes,” Gershovitz also said. “Although the large sums hitherto raised through the emotional appeals of the overseas situation may not be matched after that appeal is reduced, many prognosticators confidently expect that the broad mobilization of interest and manpower through national means and through greater local effectiveness in campaigning may succeed in retaining higher levels of giving to meet the more comprehensive and overall needs of the American Jewish community.”