Role of J. T. A. Lauded by President of Conservative Synagogue Movement

The role which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency plays in keeping Jewish community leaders informed on events in Jewish life throughout the world is emphasized in an article by George Maislen, president of the United Synagogue of America, central organ of the 800 Conservative synagogues in this country. The article, published in the current issue of the United Synagogue Review, official organ of the Conservative movement, reads:

“Organized Jewish life has become so ramified, so richly textured with eventful developments, that even men and women in the echelons of Jewish leadership find it increasingly difficult to keep abreast of current information. Much of what is active and immediate news for the American Jew is necessarily ignored by the already flooded general press and meet Jewish newspapers cannot publish all the news they would like. Yet leaders of the American Jewish community on all levels must be intimately conversant with what is happening in Jewish life if they are properly to discharge their duties to their constituents.

“This need is best met, as it has been for many years, by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, whose daily bulletins provide concise and accurate reports on all aspects of Jewish life throughout the world. The reader of JTA reports acquires a global grasp of Jewish life and gains full familiarity with Jewish history as it is being made. No Jewish leader who seeks to be well informed can afford to be without this tool of leadership, a tool that is indispensable to his vocation.

“JTA is constantly improving its facilities for quick and reliable transmission of Jewish news; only a few weeks ago it opened its first leased cable circuit directly linking its New York and London offices and eliminating its vulnerability to the atmospheric disturbances disrupting radio communications. It uses radioprinter facilities communicating with South Africa, South America and Israel, where its affiliated Israeli News Agency has its own receiving station in Tel Aviv.

“A non-profit organization, JTA is one of American Jewry’s most important and influential assets. It subsists on its subscriptions, sending its daily bulletin to Jewish in stitutions and leaders who cannot perform their functions satisfactorily without it. Certainly every rabbi, every synagogue officer, every student of Jewish affairs, every educator who plans current events courses for children and adults, every synagogue leader who seeks to be well-informed on Jewish life, should avail himself of these tools of leadership, the informative bulletins of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.”