Social Workers Convene Today at Lake Placid

The center of outstanding Jewish communal activity insofar as Jewish social service, Y.M.H.A. and other centers, and education are ###ncerned has been shifted to this Adirondack resort as foremost social service leaders and workers gather here today for the annual meetings of the three principal organizations in those fields. The convention will open tomorrow and continue through June 18.

The organizations sponsoring the convention are the National Conference of Jewish Social Service, headed by Dr. Ben M. Selekman of Boston; the National Association of Jewisch Center Executives, of which the president is William Pinsker of Brockton, Mass., and the National Council of Jewish Education, whose president is Louis Hurwich of Boston.

Weighty problems looking toward the possible reorientation of many Jewish activities in this country, if such alteration is found necessary because of changed conditions of ever-decreasing immigration and the tendency toward a rise in anti-Semitism, will be considered by all three groups.

‘PRACTITIONERS’ TO MEET

In addition to the three major groups, a fourth, compising an autonomous section of the National Conference of Jewish Social Service, will also meet here at the same time. This group is the Association of Practitioners in Jewish Social Agencies and is made up of the so-called “rank and file” employes of the Jewish organizations.

Various constitutional changes advocated by the practitioners will come up before the National Conference. The practitioners are expected also to project certain programs of “action” which, however, will not have the official sanction of the Conference as a whole.

The educators and center executives convene their sessions officially tomorrow morning, with reports of officers taking up some of the early meetings. Tomorrow night, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bureau of Jewish Education and the Teachers Institute of New York will be celebrated formally by the educators.

Saturday night, Dr. Selekman will open officially the first session of the National Conference, and the two other major groups will join that session. One of the principal subjects of the conference will be placed immediately on the agenda. The subject is titled “Jewish Economic Adjustment Problems and Programs.” An indication of the importance of this subject may be seen in the fact that two entire general sessions—that is, sessions attended by all three groups—will be devoted to an exhaustive survey of the problems involved. Sunday evening’s general session will be devoted to the same topic.

Among educators and center executives who will read papers or give papers at the sessions tomorrow will be the following: Charles Nemser of Jersey City; Graenum Berger of Staten Island; Aaron Allen, of Plainfield, N. J.; Mouse W. Beckelman, of the Bronx House, New York; Dr. Samuel Dinin, of New York; Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner of Cleveland; Ben Rosen of Philadelphia; and Dr. Louis L. Kaplan, of Baltimore.

Reports of activities engaging Jews abroad and conditions among Jews in various parts of the world, particularly in Germany and Palestine, will be given during the Conference and at one of the sessions of the practitioners’ group by Alfons Goldschmidt and Dr. Max Kreuzberger of Germany; Dr. David Lvovitch of Paris; and Israel B. Brodies of the American Economic Committee for Palestine.