Morris Waldman Chosen As Secretary of American Jewish Committee

Morris D. Waldman of Detroit, well known social worker, has been elected to fill the office of secretary of the American Jewish Committee which has been vacant for a number of years. Announcement of Mr. Waldman’s election was made by the American Jewish Committee.

Mr. Waldman’s connection with the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit will terminate on June 30. He is planning to spend the months of July and August in Europe to make personal contacts with the correspondents of the American Jewish Committee abroad, and in general, to get a fresh impression of conditions there.

Born in Hungary in 1879, Morris D. Waldman, was educated in the New York public schools, took the Degree of Ph. B. at New York University, postgraduate courses at Columbia University and attended for a time the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1903 he became Assistant Manager of the Industrial Removal Office and later took charge of the work of receiving and distributing the Jewish immigrants who came to the United States by way of Galveston, Texas. In 1908, he became Manager of the United Hebrew Charities (now the Jewish Social Service Association. of New York City which position he held until 1917 when he became the Executive Director of the Federated Jewish Charities of Boston. Massachusetts.

In 1921 he was made a member of the European Executive Council of the Joint Distribution Committee and was director of the child care and the medical-sanitary activities of that Committee in Eastern Europe; upon his return, at the end of 1922, he became the Executive Director of the Brooklyn Federation of Jewish Charities and later the Secretary of the Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit. In the summer of 1927, he was sent by the Joint Distribution Committee to investigate the economic condition of the Jews of Poland.

The unemployment situation has created a serious problem in the Jewish community of Newark. For the first two months of the year the problem was acute, according to a report submitted by Miss Esther Ast, executive director of the United Hebrew Charities, at a meeting of the professional workers of the Conference of Jewish Charities.

The meeting was called to consider the unemployment situation as it affected the conference. It concluded with the appointment of a committee to draft a resolution recommending to the conference the creation of a temporary employment bureau in preparation for installing a permanent one later.

Miss Ast stated that during January twenty family heads, anxious and able to work, and twenty-one other working members of familles, all of whom are under the care of the United Hebrew Charities, could not find jobs. The first class represented 33 per cent, of the employable men. In February these figures dropped to seventeen and sixteen. The beginning of March continued to show slight improvement.

Twenty-two boats arived at the ports of Halifax and St. John during the month of February, bringing 4,205 immigrants. Two hundred and twenty of this number were Jews.

One Jewish immigrant was detained at port of entry but he was admitted following the intervention of the legal aid department of the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society of Canada.