A four-point program for the “development of cooperative relationships” between local central organizations and national agencies in organized Jewish life in America was adopted here at a two-day conference of the West Central Region of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds attended by 250 delegates.
The program was outlined in a resolution urging member communities of the region to give “immediate and detailed consideration” to the recommendations which would integrate national-local problems into the “fabric of community concerns,” Mr. Albert H. Heller, of St. Paul, was elected regional president succeeding Irving G. Rhodes of Milwaukee.
Other resolutions passed by the delegates dealt with the need for cash payments on pledges, the efforts of the C.J.F.W.F. Committee on Stable and Unified Fund Raising, C.J.F.W.F. participation in forthcoming negotiations for a 1950 U.J.A. contract, local community responsibility for establishing programs, and the work of the Large City Budgeting Conference. The resolution on national-local relationships carried these four points:
1. Recognition by communities of the importance of national problems by providing necessary local committees or other channels to consider these problems and bring them to the attention of local boards for decision and action.
2. The issues of national-local relationships should be a normal part of the year-round operation of local central organizations.
3. Communities should be in constant touch with the C.J.F.W.F., supplying it with pertinent material to problems on national-local relationships. This includes correspondence, negotiations and local action on such problems.
4. Individual communities should take no action on problems affecting support of newly organized national agencies or on any other major national-local problems without mutual consultation with other communities and the C.J.F.W.F.
Commending the work of the C.J.F.W.F. Committee on Stable and Unified National Fund Raising and the Institute on Overseas Studies, a resolution passed by the delegates requested continuation of their activities in order that “communities might be in a better position to plan ahead to meet 1950 campaign responsibilities.”
The delegates expressed “gratification” over recently announced negotiations for the establishment of a United Jewish Appeal for 1950 and noted “with satisfaction” the active part to be played in these negotiations by the C.J.F.W.F. as the “instrument and representative” of the organized communities.
Another resolution called upon all campaign contributors to translate their pledges into cash, as a means of meeting the “critical conditions existing in the program of absorption of immigrants into Israel.” It also called upon communities to “take every possible step to ameliorate the situation,” including cash collection campaigns and loans in anticipation of Fall campaigns.
Bernard Kopkind, of New Haven, analyzing the factors involved in planning to meet 1950 responsibilities, declared that the needs of Israel, overseas and local communities must be considered in their totality.
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