The re-election of George Z. Medalie, welfare leader and former United States Attorney, as president of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City, was announced here today following a meeting of the Board of Trustees. Dr. Maurice B. Hexter, assistant to the executive vice-president of the Federation, and Joseph Willen, director of the Business Men’s Council, fund-raising arm of the Federation, were elected executive vice-presidents, and will direct the activities of the organization, it was also announced.
Dr. Hexter was born in 1896 in Cincinnati, Ohio, and was graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1912. He received his Doctorate in the department of economics at Harvard University in 1924 and was instructor and tutor in Social Ethics at Harvard from 1921 to 1929, and lecturer in Simmons College School of Social Work during the same period. From 1919 to 1929 he was executive director of the Boston Federation of Jewish Charities. He gave up his post in Boston to travel in Europe on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and he served as American non-Zionist representative on the Executive of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem until 1938, when he returned to America to assume the post of assistant to the executive vice-president of the New York Federation.
Joseph Willen was born in 1897 and was educated in the public schools of New York and in the City College of New York. For twenty-one years he has been director of the Business Men’s Council, which is charged with the responsibility for organizing financial support in the community for the 91 agencies affiliated with the Federation, and is credited with developing its organization and methods of fund-raising through trade and professional groups, which has been a model for similar philanthropic organizations elsewhere. He is a member of the executive committee of the America Jewish Committee, and of the executive committee of the American Friends of the Hebrew University. He is also a member of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds and of the board of directors of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Monroe Goldwater was named vice-president, and Ralph E. Samuel was elected secretary. The following officers were re-elected: Mrs. Sidney C. Borg, Mrs. Arthur Lehman, Paul Felix Warburg, vice-presidents; Percy S. Straus, chairman of the Board; Henry Ittleson, associate chairman of the Board; Louis J. Grumbach, treasurer; John Rosenthal, associate treasurer; John A. Sherman, assistant treasurer; and Jacob M. Frankel, assistant secretary.
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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.