Students Occupy Federation Offices; Call for Reordering of Priorities

A member of the Radical Jewish Union told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency yesterday that 35 local college and high school students occupied the offices of the San Francisco Jewish Welfare Federation Friday morning and had spent the night there in a demand for a reordering of Federation priorities. Stephen Schreter, who said he had been delegated by the other students to speak for them, said the group was organized as the Jewish Education Coalition. He said the demonstrators were students at the University of California at Berkeley. San Francisco State and high schools in the area. He said he was a student at Berkeley. Schreter said that after negotiations with Federation officials, headed by Federation president Melvin Swig, the demonstrators were warned they had to leave by 4 p.m. Friday when the Federation offices normally close, but that the demonstrators remained overnight and continued their non-violent sit-in yesterday. Because the office of the Federation was officially closed on the Sabbath, it was not possible for the JTA to confirm the student’s report, which was made by telephone.

Schreter said that spokesmen for the students made four “demands” on the Federation officials: commitment to support financially Jewish education wherever such a need arose in the city and the Bay area; action to ease the financial plight of two day schools–the Hebrew Academy and the Brandeis school, both elementary schools; action for a “serious re-evaluation of budget priorities, including current funding to Jewish centers, Jewish social service agencies and Mount Zion hospital; and a public debate within two weeks on the issues of Jewish education needs in the area. The student said that Federation officials proposed a small private meeting with four representatives of the Federation and four representatives of the students. The demonstrators rejected this asking instead that such a meeting be held publicly with “adequate representation” of views of Jews who differed with Federation policies on education and other issues. Schreter said that Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Assembly, who is in San Francisco, heard about the occupation and visited the students to give them a “Dvar Torah,” the customary brief analysis of a point of Jewish Law given at worship services. The student said Federation officials had acted as watchmen, one through Friday night and one yesterday. The students had been extra careful to avoid any damage to Federation property. Schreter said and added that observance of the Sabbath had continued through the day, with seminars and discussions.