The Rabbinical Assembly of America, representative body of Conservative rabbis, has adopted a resolution opposing national advisory budgeting for Jewish federations and welfare funds, it was announced today by the Committee to Oppose National Budgeting. A similar resolution was adopted by the Jewish Welfare Fund in Milwaukee, the Committee reported.
The resolution of the rabbinical organization says that “the Rabbinical Assembly of America believes that in this formative stage of Jewish community life, it would be very unwise and even detrimental to the full development of Jewish life in America to hamper the free and democratic decision of each community to determine for itself its allocations to local, national and overseas causes.” This statement, the resolution declares, is “a reaffirmation of our position which was taken in 1941. Our study of the situation leads us to endorse that attitude wholeheartedly. We further affirm that intelligent allocations can be made in the local communities.”
The resolution of the Milwaukee Jewish Welfare Fund expresses appreciation of the service that the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds has rendered in the accumulation of factual data on agencies appealing for funds and urges that these functions be continued and enlarged. At the same time, it emphasizes that the leaders of the Jewish Welfare Fund in Milwaukee wish to reserve for their community the right, on the basis of full information, to determine how the funds raised by the community shall be distributed.
“We believe that the establishment of a national advisory budgeting committee will retard the progress of the movement for more intelligent local action with respect to Jewish causes, since it will divert from the local to national level decisions on the distribution of funds for purposes affecting Jewish life here and tend to eliminate the desire for wider local education on Jewish needs,” the resolution says. “We believe that we are qualified in our own community to allocate funds with greater understanding of local conditions and desires.”
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