Many Large Communities Back Budget Plan, Funds Council Reports

With only a few days left before the April 1 deadline for the referendum of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds on its proposal for a national advisory budgeting committee, the Council announced today that many of the larger cities have indicated approval of the proposal.

The cities in which member agencies of the Council have approved the plan include Chicago, Baltimore, Buffalo, San Francisco, St. Louis, Kansas City, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis and Des Moines, among others.

Rabbi Emil W. Leipziger of New Orleans, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, announced his personal support of the proposal in a message to the Council. He declared the problem should be approached in the same way that Jewish agencies in local community chests approach their budgetary needs, which they lay before non-sectarian budget committees for study and evaluation of the facts.

A memorandum favoring the budgeting service was sent to local federations and welfare funds by Elisha M. Friedman, who was director of the inquiry of the Allotment Committee of the United Jewish Appeal for 1940. Friedman, in a letter attached to the memorandum, said he was “citing facts and figures which would overwhelmingly justify an affirmative.”

“I believe the efficiency of Jewish philanthropy in the united States will be advanced by a centralized advisory budgeting serive,” he said. “Furthermore, I have been active for over twenty years in a variety of causes for Palestine and have been a life member and a lifelong contributor to the Zionist organizations. Because I believe in Zionism, I am confident its growth in the United States can be accelerated by the establishment of a National Advisory Budgeting Service.”