The nationwide 1961 United Jewish Appeal was officially launched today as 400 American Jewish leaders meeting here at the Americana Hotel contributed or reported gifts that totaled $14,850,000.
The great outpouring of contributions came at a dramatic closing session of a three-day National Inaugural Conference which was marked by the resignation of Philip M. Klutznick as general chairman of the UJA and the unanimous election of Joseph Meyerhoff of Baltimore to the post.
Mr. Klutznick’s resignation followed his appointment by President Kennedy, nine days ago, as a key member of the United States Mission to the United Nations to be this country’s representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Mr. Meyerhoff, a nationally prominent communal leader and an outstanding figure in the home building field, becomes UJA’s sixth general chairman in the organization’s 22-year history, assuming what is considered to be the most important leadership post in American Jewish life.
Albert A. Levin of Cleveland, UJA’s national chairman and chairman of the inaugural conference, hailed today’s outpouring of gifts “as a sign of American Jewry’s continued interest in aiding Israel’s immigrants and as a heartfelt tribute by American Jewry to Philip M. Klutznick and Joseph Meyerhoff. The $14,850,000 in starting gifts received today, “Mr. Levin noted, “exceeds the amount contributed to start last year’s campaign by more than two-and-a-half million dollars.”
Today’s response followed a strong plea by Major General Chaim Laskov, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli defense forces, that American Jews help “step up the process of absorbing some 320,000 still, unintegrate immigrants in Israel, in order to ensure the country’s remarkable democratic gains, “General Laskov declared: “The record shows that the establishment of Israel represents the one real achievement in nation building on the democratic front since the end of world War II.”
MEYERHOFF AND KLUTZNICK ADDRESS CLOSING SESSION OF U.J.A. PARLEY
In accepting the United Jewish Appeal general chairmanship Mr. Meyerhoff told today’s meeting: “I do so in the solemn realization that more than half a million lives literally depend on those who lead and serve in the UJA, But I am also aware that it has been the great good fortune of our generation to have the opportunity to end age old problems of Jewish suffering and misery. This is a challenge which I humbly accept secure in the knowledge that I will receive your full support.”
The new UJA general chairman has been active in philanthropic and communal work on every level, from the local to the international, for more than three.. decades. In the world of business, meanwhile, he is nationally prominent in the fields of home building and real estate development, and as the past president of the National Association of Homebuilders of the United States.
He has been long identified with programs of aid to Jewish refugees overseas as a national chairman of the UJA and former chairman of its national campaign chairmen. He also has been a vigorous advocate in promoting Israel’s economic stability through private enterprise. In this connection, he serves as president of the Palestine Economic Corporation.
Mr. Meyerhoff serves additionally as the vice-chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Inc., as a member of the National Executive Committee of Israel Bonds and as Award member of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare funds. In Baltimore, he was student of the Associated Jewish Charities and holds numerous posts in civic and Jewish codies. He is chairman of the Maryland State Planning Commission.
“The task to which I have been called upon to undertake by the President and which I feel it a privilege to undertake,” Mr. Klutznick told the conference, “seeks to promote a maximum of world cooperation in many of the very fields in which we are active in the United Jewish Appeal.”
“I could not find it in my heart to reject any legitimate invitations of the President to serve our nation’s legitimate hopes and ambitions. But in addition I welcome this special opportunity to serve in an area which I regard as an extension of the very interests that for years have occupied my energies and my best hopes.”
Others who played prominent roles in the conference this weekend, included Samual H. Daroff of Philadelphia, and William Rosenwald of New York, national chairman of the UJA; Melvyn Dubinsky of St. Louis, chairman of the UJA Campaign Cabinet, Jacob Sincoff of New York, UJA co-treasurer, and Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, executive vice-chairman of the UJA.
(In New York, the 22nd annual meeting of the Council of Organizations of the United Jewish Appeal adopted unanimously today a resolution pledging accelerated efforts in support of the current UJA campaign to raise $72,740,000 in 1961. The delegates, representing 700,000 members of the Council’s 7,500 affiliated organizations, heard Dr. Aryeh Kubovy, director of the Yad Vashem, the Israel collection center for documentation of the Nazi destruction of Jewry, appeal for broad support of the campaign.)
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