L.c.b.c. Reports on Budgetary Reviews of 14 National Jewish Groups

Matters of vital importance to Jewish community life in this country were reviewed by the Large City Budgeting Conference of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds during budgetary discussions with 14 Jewish agencies which submitted their budgets to the LCBC for joint review, it was reported today by George Michelson, of Boston, LCBC chairman.

As an example of bringing the ever-changing situation in Jewish communal needs into focus at LCBC sessions, Mr. Michelson cited the assumption of full responsibility for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by its independent board whose budget has been reviewed and approved by the LCBC. He also cited the impact of current migration requirement on the budget of the United Hias Service which was reviewed by the LCBC; the efforts of the American Association for Jewish Education to devise and finance a program adapted to today’s needs which were analyzed by the LCBC and the financial problems posed to the National Jewish Welfare Board by a retrenchment of USO financing.

Michelson welcomed the fact that the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League has this year joined the LCBC as the 14th participating agency in joint budget review. He announced that the LCBC now has under consideration a request by the World Jewish Congress, American section, for admission to the joint budget review process, “We shall consult the member communities’ wishes individually as we attempt to determine whether it is in the community interest for LCBC’s necessarily limited energies and resources to be extended to this review,” he said.

“We are also engaged in informal discussions, at our initiative, with representatives of the American Jewish Committee, an agency whose participation LCBC has invited on the basis of many expressions of community interest,” the LCBC chairman continued. “When these discussions will have been pursued further, we shall be in a position to report more specifically on the prospects for budget review of the American Jewish Committee.”

Mr. Michelson reported that “the LCBC finds itself this year dealing with communal agencies that, in performance of vitally needed services, spend $14,500,000 annually, receiving over $4,000,000 of this from Jewish welfare funds all over the country.”