Jewish Welfare Board Parley Adopts $2,711,674 Budget for 1952

The National Jewish Welfare Board will need a budget of $2,711,674 in 1952 to meet its vastly increased responsibilities for service to the expanding U.S. armed forces and to its affiliated Jewish community centers, it was made known at the closing session today of the National Leadership Mobilization on GI and Community Service. Three hundred Jewish community leaders participated in the mobilization and approved the budget.

Philip M. Waterman, of New York, chairman of the J.W.B. Armed Service Division, estimated that before the end of 1952, the organization will be serving 200,000 Jews in uniform. Rabbi Max D. Davidson, chairman of the J.W.B.’s Division of Religious Activities, said there are now 70 Jewish chaplains on active duty. In 1952, Rabbi Davidson estimated, a minimum of 147 Jewish chaplains will be needed. A total of 575 military installations and V. A. hospitals are covered by the full and part-time chaplains, he reported.

J.W.B. president Irving Edison pledged uninterrupted service to the government as long as the need exists. He called upon the participants at the mobilization meeting to carry back to their communities the facts and to rally communal support around J.W.B.’s effort to serve. “In a period such as this our responsibility is of great importance and should be so recognized and supported by the Jewish communities of America,” he said.

Frank L. Weil, former chairman of President Truman’s Committee on Morale and Welfare in the Armed Forces, declared that the “American Jewish community has a great responsibility which the National Jewish Welfare Board is peculiarly fitted to discharge.” Other speakers at the conference included Assistant Secretary of Defense Daniel K. Edwards, Major General Charles I. Carpenter, Air Force Chief of Chaplains, and Carl R. Gray, Jr., Administrator of Veterans Affairs.