Leaders of the most important elements in the Jewish communal life of New York City are actively engaged in preparations for an early drive in behalf of the $6,000,000 Allied Jewish Campaign, according to an announcement from national headquarters. The names of the chairman of the New York campaign committee and his associates will shortly be made public, together with the quota which the Jews of the metropolis will be called upon to contribute. Local headquarters for the New York campaign have already been established and the preliminary work for the drive is under way.
The ground work for the New York drive, was laid prior to the Washington National Conference of the Allied Jewish Campaign, at a meeting on March 2, at the home of Felix M. Warburg.
Mr. Warburg laid stress on the fact that the $6,000,000 sought through the Allied Jewish Campaign to meet the needs of the Jews of Eastern Europe and of Palestine is less than the amounts asked for in previous years for both purposes. There have been years, Mr. Warburg pointed out, when the Jews of the United States have been asked for $7,000,000 for the Joint Distribution Committee and $3,000,000 by the United Palestine Appeal.
Mr. Baerwald, who, in addition to being one of the chairmen of the Allied Jewish Campaign, is treasurer of the Joint Distribution Committee, pointed out that this organization had made no appeal for funds at all in 1929—that, as a matter of fact, it had not appealed for funds in New York City since March, 1926, when there was raised in the metropolis an amount equal to the national quota of the present allied effort. During the intervening years, most of the contributors had paid the pledges they made in that famous drive.
Mr. Bressler, who was actively in charge of the New York campaign of March, 1926, compared conditions existing in the metropolis then with the present-day situation.
“During every campaign, every community wants to know what New York, the largest Jewish community in the world, is going to do. Up to the present time, New York has always given a good account of itself, and I am sure it will do so now. Our first attempts to organize the 1926 drive were met with pessimism. Nobody believed we could succeed. The campaign here started under conditions similar to those confront us now. There was a market crash that year, as there was last Fall. Yet, in spite of the pessimism in spite of doubts, the New York campaign was a brilliant success.”
Similar confidence in the outcome of a drive in New York City was expressed by Lieut.-Gov. Lehman, who had come from Albany to attend the meeting.
Dr. Lee K. Frankel also expressed confidence in the outcome. “Six million dollars is nothing for the Jews to raise in good time or bad times,” he declared, as he pledged his cooperation. Morris Rothenberg assured the gathering that the chairmen of the Allied Jewish Campaign were under no illusions concerning the psychological factors of the campaign.
The meeting concluded with the following committee to organize the New York drive, select its officers and decide what share of the $6,000,000 the five boroughs should be asked to give: Paul Baerwald, chairman; Hon. Otto A. Rosalsky, Dr. Solomon Lowenstein, Samuel Sachs, Howard S. Cullman, B. C. Vladeck, Jonah J. Goldstein, Mrs. Sol Rosenbloom, Eli Winkler, Judge Mitchell May, Hugh Grant Straus, Harry Fischel, D. S. Guttesman, Philip Wattenberg and Carl H. Pforzheimer.
Reports from the field show intensified preliminary activity in many communities since the issuance of Mr. Bressler’s letter calling upon the delegates to the conference to take the initiative in their own communities to launch drives at the earliest possible moment.
A meeting of leaders of the New Haven community to organize a drive was held on the 25th. The leaders of the Washington, D. C., community are at work on the preliminary stages of a drive in the national capital. The leaders of the communities of Springfield, Holyoke, Pittsfield, Northampton, Greenfield and other Western Massachusetts towns conferred with regard to a drive for their region this week Omaha is getting under way, and that part of New Jersey which lies within the metropolitan area is lining up for an early drive.
Leaders of the Atlanta, Ga. community held a conference this week under the chairmanship of Harold Hirsch, to discuss an early drive.
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