Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R.N.Y.), and four other Senators have introduced a Community Employment and Training Act including a special provision that would aid Jews and others living outside designated poverty areas. Javits acknowledged that the provision was included as the result of reports by the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and other Jewish organizations pointing out that despite $3000-or-less incomes for 15 percent of American Jewish families, “participation by Jews in the poverty program has been minimal.”
“Recent studies,” Javits said, “indicate that nearly a million Jews in the United States live at poverty or near-poverty levels….The provision I am introducing is intended to overcome this insensitivity to the needs of the Jewish poor. The poor are still much with us–and they are our brethren.” The act calls for establishing programs to insure that economically disadvantaged persons residing outside areas having high concentrations of economically disadvantaged persons receive assistance “on an equitable basis to economically disadvantaged persons residing in such areas.” The bill’s co-sponsors are Sens. J. Caleb Boggs (Del.), Edward W. Brooke (Mass.), Mark O, Hatfield (Ore.) and Richard S. Schweiker (Pa.), all Republicans.
ORTHODOX WILL BE AMONG COVERED
Roy Millenson, an aide to Javita, emphasized to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the special provision could not be called a Jewish provision, because it is designed to help all disadvantaged persons outside designated poverty areas. But Millenson noted that needy Jewish youth and aged, “especially among the Orthodox,” would be among those covered by the proposed legislation.
Asked why Javits has not moved to redesign the designated poverty areas to include largely Jewish poor neighborhoods that are now excluded, Millenson said: “You can redesign the areas from here to hell and gone. If you don’t have the resources it doesn’t do you any good.”
The Javits aide said he foresaw no trouble in passing the act, although he would not categorically predict its success. He noted that the Senate committee that will consider it–Labor and Public Welfare–is sympathetic to its aims. The 17-man committee includes Sens. Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (D.N.J.). Edward M. Kennedy (D.Mass.), Alan Cranston (D. Calif.), Harold E. Hughes (D. Ia.), Adlai E. Stevenson III (D. III.) and Javits himself.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
