One hundred and two representatives from 21 Jewish community groups and grass roots organizations met behind closed doors Monday night and adopted a resolution to challenge in the courts “the clearly discriminatory manner in which the city’s anti-poverty programs now function,” it was learned today.
They also adopted resolutions calling upon the organized Jewish community groups to allocate a minimum of $100,000 to be used to strengthen existing grass roots organizations; to organize new local and city-wide grass roots organizations; and to elect a 10-man Ad Hoc Committee to oversee these activities–five members to represent the “grass roots” and five to represent the organized Jewish community.
It was learned that the four-hour meeting, which was convened by the Subcommittee on the Inner City of the Ad Hoc Leadership Committee of the New York Jewish Organizations, was stormy at times. Representatives clashed over the best means of obtaining greater federal funding to meet the needs of the city’s Jewish poor in areas concerning the aged, child care, family assistance and manpower training.
Before the introduction of the resolutions and debates which followed before they took final form, the discussion reportedly centered on how the Jewish community could regain its once powerful “political clout.” Speakers emphasized that it was “incumbent upon community leaders” to impress upon the city’s Jewish political leaders to bring pressure on the Mayor John V, Lindsay in getting a fair share of Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) money for the Jewish poor.
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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.
