The three-day annual national conference of the United Jewish Appeal concluded here today with the adoption of a resolution setting forth the U. J. A. objective for 1953 as the raising of “the largest possible sums” to meet the urgent needs of its constituent agencies — The United Israel Appeal, Joint Distribution Committee and United Service for New Americans — totalling nearly $45,000,000.
Edward M. M. Warburg was unanimously re-elected General Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal for the third successive year. The 1,200 delegates at the conference acclaimed him for his dedicated leadership of the U. J. A. during his previous two terms of office. Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz was also re-elected vice-chairman of the U. J. A. for the third successive year. The sum of $2,250,000 in checks toward the 1952 goal was presented at the final session by leaders of Jewish communities.
The conference also adopted a resolution seeking to reverse a downward trend in U. J. A. allocations by some communities. The resolution urged that “all communities refrain from making allocations to the U. J. A. out of the proceeds of their campaigns without first giving the U. J. A. an opportunity to have its representatives meet with the representatives of the communities for a full discussion of mutual problems and needs.”
The delegates, in a resolution, expressed their sorrow at the death of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, first President of the State of Israel and paid tribute to “his statesmanship, his wisdom, his warm human qualities and his superb leadership.” They also sent congratulations, in another resolution, to Itzhak Ben Zvi on his election to Israel’s Presidency.
$72,000,000 RAISED IN 1952; $806,000,000 SINCE 1939
The 1,200 Jewish community leaders from all parts of the country were told by Mr. Warburg that the United Jewish Appeal, in the 14 years of its existence, has raised more than $806,000,000 and has succeeded in assisting resettlement and aid programs for a total of 2,240,000 Jews. This sum includes $72,000,000 raised during 1952.
The U. J. A. General Chairman pointed to the scope of world-wide Jewish needs confronting the United Jewish Appeal, and called on the Jews of this country “to serve as a key force in assuring a better future for Israel and for distressed Jews in other parts of the world,” Mr. Warburg told the conferees that recent events in Eastern Europe affecting the status of Jews and the spread of tension in the Moslem world where Jews are traditionally an oppressed minority come as warnings that American Jews must redouble their support of the United Jewish Appeal.
William Rosenwald, national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, called attention to the $144,354,250 required by the U. J. A. agencies in the coming year and said that the United Israel Appeal would require the largest sum, or $117,250,000, with $25,491,000 needed by the Joint Distribution Committee, $545,250 by the United Service for New Americans, and $1,238,000 by the New York Association for New Americans. He pointed out that of the $144,354,250 required by the U. J. A. constituent agencies in the coming year, more than 90 percent, or $130,600,000, is proposed for expenditure in Israel alone.
CONSEQUENCES FOR JEWS OF PRAGUE TRIAL STRESSED BY SPEAKERS
The consequences which the anti-Semitic tone of the recent “purge” trial in Prague may have for Jews in countries behind the Iron Curtain were stressed by some of the leading speakers during the sessions last night and today. Dr. Joseph Schwartz, executive vice-chairman of the U. J. A., said at the concluding session today that American Jews “should hold themselves in readiness for possible contingencies” attendant on the rise and spread of anti-Semitism in Czechoslovakia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
Referring to the recent “confession trials in Prague,” Dr. Schwartz termed them “a terrible echo” of 14 years ago when “Hitler won a free hand in Czechoslovakia.” He pointed out that anti-Semitism has again become “a weapon of the Czech State in violation of the spirit of Benes and Masaryk,” and asked whether “the world is about to witness once more the spectacle of Jewish oppression at the hands of totalitarian government, this time Communist totalitarianism.”
He emphasized that “there are still 2,000,000 or more Jews behind the Iron Curtain, including those in the Soviet Union.” More than 280,000 of them, he said, are in Rumania, 150,000 in Hungary, 80,000 in Poland, 18,000 in Czechoslovakia, 7,000 in Bulgaria, and the rest in the U.S.S.R.
“What we can do, and what we will be able to do for Jews behind the Iron Curtain is no easier to say in this new situation,” Dr. Schwartz declared, “than it was in the early days when Jews were being held behind the Nazi frontiers. But I believe that in 1953 we must do everything in our power to make ready, and to be ready, to again save lives.”
ISRAEL LEADER CALLS PRAGUE TRIAL “FRAME UP AGAINST ZIONISM”
Dr. George Josephthal, treasurer of the Jewish Agency, said that the “atmosphere created by the instigators of the Prague frame-up against Zionism is conducive to anti-Semitism and relegates Jews to the category of second-class citizens.” The Israeli leader, who directs the Jewish Agency’s immigrant absorption program, declared:
“It is hard to say anything today about the situation of the Jews in the Iron Curtain countries. More than 400,000 Jews from behind the Iron Curtain have been brought to Israel. More than 350,000 are still left in that area, excepting the Jews in the USSR. None of as can say what the repercussions of the Prague trial may be. The atmosphere created by the instigators of the Prague frame-up against Zionism is conducive to anti-Semitism and relegates Jews to the category of second-class citizens.
“The Prague trial propounds again the infamous theory familiar to us from experience with the Fascist and Arab countries — namely that a Jew cannot be loyal to the country he lives in, because he is a Jew. It is a call to the lowest, most base, instincts of the illiterate, bigoted and fanatic sections of the population of those countries. We are determined that the Jews in the Iron Curtain countries should be saved for a full Jewish life and be spared the horrible fate of Soviet Jewry whose culture has been banished and whose ties with world Jewry have been banned.
“We must therefore strengthen and increase our efforts to obtain the release of as many Jews as possible from these areas at whatever cost in money and effort. The gates are closed in some of these countries, but not in all of them. We have to speed up emigration from these lands whatever the risk involved. And we say to the rulers in Prague, Warsaw, Bucharest and Budapest: Give us these ‘Zionist imperialists, these stateless intellectuals, these petits bourgeois cosmopolitans.’ And we pledge to the Jews in those countries: We shall never, never forget you, nor abandon you. We shall not shrink before any sacrifice to have you with us.”
DR. GOLDMANN SAYS GERMAN REPARATIONS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR U. J. A
Dr. Nahum Goldmann chairman of the Jewish Agency and one of the principal negotiators of the recently concluded talks with West-Germany that led to the reparations treaty providing for the payment to Israel of $822,000,000 in goods over a 12 year period, told the conference that signing of the reparation agreement must not bring a lessening in support of the United Jewish Appeal as it seeks to strengthen the new state’s economy.
He emphasized that Germany will not make its payment in dollars and that “the goods it will deliver will have to be used primarily for long term investment which will bear fruit only after a number of years.” He expressed the belief that “Israel is beginning to move into a situation with real prospect of full consolidation,” but stressed that the Jewish state would put aside economic considerations to give priority to a mass immigration of Jews fleeing from hostile lands.
“If the Jews of Eastern Europe would be allowed to leave those countries,” he declared, “Israel would have to take them in without consideration of the economic results, especially after the Prague trial.”
Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, in reporting on the J. D. C. budgetary requirements for 1953, told the conferees that his agency needs a minimum of $25,491,000 “to meet the most urgent needs of 175,000 Jewish men, women and children in 20 countries of Europe, North Africa and the Near East, including Israel.”
He reported that close to one half of J. D. C.’s 1953 financial requirement or $12,100,000 is intended for expenditure in Israel alone on the unique medical welfare program known as “Malben,” He told the conference that this program, “organized at the close of 1949 to provide comprehensive medical care and rehabilitation services for physically-disabled, sick and aged newcomers to Israel, has developed in three years into the largest voluntary health service in the Jewish State.”
Ellis Radinsky, executive director of the United Israel Appeal, who presented the U.L. A. budgetary requirement totalling $117,250,000 told the conference that “the principal purpose for which this sum is intended is to bring every able-bodied newcomer and recent immigrant to Israel out of the shadows of marginal existence in the temporary camps and into the context of full productivity and human dignity.”
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