Mrs. Felix M. Warburg Appeals for Support of Beth Jacob Schools; Gives $500

The plight of the young Jewish girl in Eastern and Central Europe was described as frightful by speakers at a reception tendered to Mrs. Israel Zangwill at the American Women’s Association Club House on Tuesday.

Mrs. Felix M. Warburg and Mrs. Rebekah Kohut were hostesses at this tea in behalf of the American Beth Jacob Committee which is carrying on vocational and educational training activities among Jewish girls in Europe. Two hundred prominent Jewish women actively identified in various communal, civic and social endeavors were present.

Mrs. Kohut presided and the speakers included Mrs. Zangwill, Mrs. Warburg, and Rabbi Leo Jung, President of the American Beth Jacob Committee.

Mrs. Warburg in a brief address appealed for the financial support of the 226 schools which the Beth Jacob maintains throughout Eastern and Central Europe. These schools she said, are caring for 30,000 young women whose ages range from 14 to 20 and who are given comprehensive training along vocational as well as academic lines. The work of these schools must be continued, she said, and urged the women present to give both financial as well as personal support. “We are Jews all over”, she said, “and we must help Jews as such”.

Mrs. Kohut pointed out the horrors that face the untrained and uncared for young Jewish women of today in Europe. These girls, she stated, many of whom are homeless or are in homes of destitute parents, become easy prey to the white slave traffic and it is only through the efforts of the Beth Jacob Schools that they are literally saved from such degradation and ruin. She gave a vivid description of some of these schools which she herself had visited during the past few years, and concluded by saying that the future of Jewish womanhood in Eastern and Central Europe depends in a large measure upon the help that the Jewish women of America give to the Beth Jacob Schools. “During the terrible years following the war only the Beth Jacob girls had a feeling of security or a sense of protection not only of their physical lives but in their moral welfare,” she said.

Mrs. Zangwill urged support of the American Beth Jacob Committee as a means for obtaining world peace.

“Unless there is education there can be no peace,” Mrs. Zangwill said. “The Jews were the first to develop a passion for peace,” Mrs. Zangwill continued. “Naturally war has always brought misery to the world as well as to the Jews, but the Jews were the first to feel the reaction.”

Rabbi Jung reviewed the history and growth of the Beth Jacob movement abroad, saying that it started in 1922 with a small school in Cracow. Poland, and today it has grown to 226 schools scattered all over Eastern and Central Europe with a school population of over 30,000. During the ten years of its existence, he pointed out, over 100,000 Jewish girls were trained to make independent livings and in many instances a large number of these girls support their families. Rabbi Jung further said: “No nobler work can be undertaken by American Jewish women than this saving of an entire generation of Jewish womanhood. If these schools were forced to close, there would be a spiritual debacle in Europe”.

A gift of $500 was announced by Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, which was followed by donations of $100 each from Mrs. Sol Rosenbloom, Mrs. A. Neustadt, Mrs. Esther Surut, Mrs. Henry Bloch and Mrs. Harry Fischel. A campaign to raise additional funds will soon be launched, in which the women present at the tea pledged their cooperation.