Reform Judaism Institutions Reported Facing “perilous” Fund Shortage

Warned that American Reform Judaism’s top national institutions “are faced by a perilous shortage of funds that may force a halt to the expansion of this religious movement.” board members of both the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion today endorsed the immediate opening in the Greater New York area of a pre-Passover drive by the Combined Campaign for the raising of an additional $100,000.

The $100,000 goal was voted as an addition to the more than $500,000 being sought in Greater New York toward a Combined Campaign national objective of $2,500,000 for the 1956-57 fiscal year. The special drive will be launched on Sunday. The Combined Campaign for American Reform Judaism is the financial mainstay of the 84-year-old Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the 82-year-old Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

The warning that Reform Judaism’s national institutions are being crippled by a shortage of funds was sounded by Dr Maurice N. Eisendrath, president of the UAHC. Speaking to board members of the two institutions at an emergency meeting in the Harmony Club, he emphasized that “we may have to apply the brakes and call a halt to the expansion of this religious movement unless our sacred national institutions are put in a far better financial position to keep pace with the spiritual needs of a Reform Jewish community that now numbers 1,000,000 men, women and children.”

Dr. Eisendrath pointed out that Reform Judaism had experienced its greatest period of growth in the last 10 years, adding that “the only thing that can stop this phenomenal development is a financial inability to help in the formation of new congregations, the training of more Rabbis and the widening of Reform’s exemplary religious school system.”