Joint Defense Appeal Opens Three-day Conference; Will Discuss Methods to Combat Bias

A three-day national conference of the Joint Defense Appeal will open here tomorrow at the Hotel Bellvue-Stratford to discuss a program of counter-measures for combatting anti-Semitism in the United States. More than 500 Jewish communal leaders representing every section of the country will participate in the conference.

Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, who will be the principal speaker tomorrow evening, will outline the responsibilities which history has imposed on American Jewry for rebuilding Jewish life in Europe and for securing the future of Jews throughout the world. He is expected to point out that organized anti-Semitism in this country must be fought if American Jewry is to carry out these responsibilities. Other speakers-will include Frank Goldman, president of the B’nai B’rith; U.S. Senator Wayne Morse 6f Oregon; Justice Meir Steinbrink, national chairman of the Anti-Defamation league of the B’nai B’rith; Jacob Blaustein, chairman of the executive of the American Jewish Committee; and Donald Oberdorfer, chairman of the national council of the Joint Defense Appeal, which finances the defense progress of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League.

The opening session of the conference will hear addresses of welcome by Albert H. Lieberman, Philadelphia Jewish leader, and Samuel H. Daroff, president of the Philadelphia Allied Jewish Appeal. Dr. John Slawson, executive vice president of the American Committee, and Benjamin R. Epstein, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, will analyze the current status of anti-Semitism at a special session of the conference. Their talks will be followed by panel discussions to study the program necessary for more effective resistance against racial and religious bigotry.