The New York Metropolitan Coordinating Council accused the Department of Health, Education and Welfare of failing to respond directly to a coordinating council request to qualify Jews whose primary language is Yiddish to benefit from government programs to aid minority groups. Jerome M. Becker coordinating council president, said he had made a specific request in a March 25 letter to HEW Secretary Caspar Weinberger.
Becker said he had asked the city’s Human Resources Administration, which disburses federal anti-poverty funds, to issue a directive that Yiddish-speaking persons be included in guidelines for grants to minority groups, and that in all future regulations for legislation, HEW should specifically include the Yiddish language in its definitions of minority group status, as it had done with the Spanish language. Such a step, he added, “would reap benefits for thousands of Yiddish-speaking citizens throughout the country.”
Becker said he based his requests on broadened guidelines on minority definition which appeared in HEW rules and regulations pertaining to an amendment to Title III of the Older Americans Act of 1965. He said these regulations, promulgated by HEW in the Oct. 11, 1973 Federal Register, specifically included the term “Spanish language” in its definition of minorities. He said that term had not been included in the original 1965 act or in Public Law 92-28 of March 22, 1972 which amended it.
The coordinating council president said he had previously sent a similar communication to New York Gov. Malcolm Wilson and that he had received assurances that the matter had been referred to appropriate state agencies for investigation. Becker said favorable replies also were received from several state Senators and Representatives. He added that he had received a reply from a HEW department official which said only that the official wan not familiar with all the problems of the Yiddish-speaking Jews of New York and that he was therefore instructing a local representative to contact the coordinating council on the matter.
RESPONSE IS UNSATISFACTORY, DEMEANING
Becker said it was “astonishing” that four months after Rabbi Akiba Zilberberg, president of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Boro Park, had written to Weinberger concerning the status of non-English speaking Jews, HEW “is replying with the identically-worded form letter.” Calling the response “unsatisfactory and demeaning,” Becker added that more than a month had passed since he received the HEW response and that he was still waiting for contact by the local official cited in the letter.
In response to Becker’s specific requests, the HEW letter said that since the minority definition was meant to identify the aged poor found in larger concentrations in most states, the responsibility for this minority designation rested with each state agency concerned; and that most of the HEW programs for the disadvantaged were designed not for minorities but for low income groups.
Becker commented that “the plight of the Yiddish-speaking poor is not a local issue but a matter of national concern.” He said it was “unconscionable that HEW should skirt the issue by directing that requests be made of each and every state in which these minorities reside in large numbers.”
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