The two weeks campaign of the Federation of Jewish Charities for $1,750,000 closed last night, $400,000 short of its goal. Campaign leaders attributed the shortage to the stock market crash. Announcement that a deficit drive would be made in the Spring for the $400,000 lacking was met by a scathing indictment of the Jewish community by Judge Horace Stern, chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Jewish Committee and a leader of Philadelphia Jewry.
“It is incredible,” the judge declared, “that the Jews of Philadelphia should fail to take care of their sick and their needy. Never in the 30 years of the Federation has such an admission been made. Regardless of the stock market crash or the real estate market, there are resources in the Jewish fortunes of this city that easily would yield this sum. I don’t care how the money is gotten. It must be gotten. It could be done by taking a group of four or five rich Philadelphia Jews into a room and demanding it of them. They would never miss it.”
Judge Stern said that if the Federation is forced to admit defeat, it would be better to return to the days when there was no Federation.
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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.
