The Jewish Conciliation Board of America heard more cases involving intermarriage, desertion, drug addiction and marital difficulties during the past year than in any other year since its founding in 1920, according to the board’s annual report for 1968. The Jewish Conciliation board adjusts and conciliates disputes involving Jewish individuals and organizations through a panel of judges and experts who hold sessions regularly. It also maintains a social service department that settles family problems privately. The report said the upsurge of cases of types that in previous years were rare among persons seeking the board’s help “mirror the conflicts and stresses of the city.” There were also many more referrals from the civil courts and from attorneys. The board held 20 sessions and adjudicated 96 cases in the past year. It also settled many other cases and conducted 937 interviews. Some cases were referred to other agencies better suited to handle them, the report said.
It cited two cases which were considered unusual. One involved a dispute between a fraternal society and a widowed member who was remarried and to a non-Jew. The society refused to continue his membership and sought to deprive him of the burial plot he had purchased. The Conciliation Board panel agreed unanimously that the society could not deny the man membership or his plot under its own by-laws. Both sides accepted the terms of a settlement proposed by the panel. The other case involved a woman whose husband had become a chronic alcoholic and gambler and whose family was in danger of breaking up. One teenage daughter ran off with hippies and another was keeping company with a Catholic boy whom the family did not approve. Although the husband could not be cured of his alcoholism, arrangements made through the Conciliation Board gave the woman financial security and enabled her to solve some of her family problems. The report was prepared by Ruth Richman, executive director.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
