The Johnson Administration’s commitment to Israel’s defense and security was reaffirmed here today by Myer Feldman, special counsel to President Johnson, in an address to the Unite Jewish Appeal’s national inaugural conference of the 1965 drive.
Earlier, Vice President Elect Hubert H. Humphrey lauded the UJA achievements. He told 400 national leaders attending the two-day conference that the UJA’s goals were consistent with President Johnson’s drive to eliminate poverty and social injustice in pursuit of the goals of the “Great Society.”
Max M. Fisher, of Detroit, General Chairman of the UJA, said that the raising of UJA’s 1965 national goal of $109,400,000 was “the most important Jewish secular activity in which an American Jew can be engaged.” Another major address was delivered by Joseph Meyerhoff, of Baltimore, who preceded Mr. Fisher in the post of General Chairman.
In his address, Mr. Feldman, who cited President Johnson’s and Mr. Humphrey’s friendship to Israel, stressed that the United States is committee to the assistance of Israel in the event of aggression against it, and strongly reiterated the viability of the American commitment. The White House official, who is President Johnson’s personal adviser on Israeli and Jewish affairs, told the UJA leaders that friendship is a two-way street, in that America’s War on Poverty is now receiving assistance from Israel.
He cited the use by the United States of Israeli research and advances in education, medical science, and assistance to the underprivileged. He said the United States Department of Health. Education and Welfare was applying domestically the achievements of Israeli educators and medical researchers. He likened the UJA’s overseas relief and rehabilitation program to the U.S. Government’s foreign aid program.
“The Jews of America started their own aid programs even before the period of American governmental programs of aid,” he said. “Chiefly through the UJA, the Jews of the United States assured the survival of several million Jewish victims of war and oppression. It is pertinent to state that, of the 2,500,000 people now living in freedom in Israel, nearly one and a half million are immigrants whom the UJA helped bring and resettle there. This would not have happened, had it not been for the Jewish community of America. It certainly would not have happened had it not been for the UJA.”
MAX FISHER ANNOUNCES $10,200,000 IN INITIAL GIFTS TO U. J. A. DRIVE
Mr. Fisher announced that the 1965 UJA drive has opened with contributions totaling $10,200,000, the largest sum ever raised during the first week of a UJA campaign in the Appeal’s 27-year-history. This “initial gifts” sum, he said, includes funds raised in a number of communities throughout the nation, in preparation for the Washington conference.
The UJA’s total 1965 goal, he said, includes $71,000,000 for global programs now in progress to aid refugees and distressed Jews, and $38,000,000 as a special fund to meet costs of a critical immigration resettlement and absorption undertaking in Israel, and related needs. Nearly 750,000 Jews throughout the world will benefit from the 1965 drive.
Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, UJA executive vice-chairman, voiced a plea for elimination of “pockets of poverty” in Israel created by the influx of 250,000 destitute immigrants in the last four years. He said 1965 will see the continuation of the flow of immigration to Israel from backward countries. He warned that another monumental effort will be required of the American Jewish community to meet commitments in Israel and 29 other nations.
He emphasized that “today the work of transporting, receiving and absorbing the latest immigrants from the North African countries and certain European lands is as meaningful as it was in the immediate postwar period of rescue and resettlement of the concentration camp survivors.”
This year, Rabbi Friedman continued, the UJA must assume a greater financial responsibility for raising Israel’s disadvantaged segment of population to the level of the earlier settlers. He said immigrant families must receive decent homes, intensive job training to fit them into the emerging modern industrial society in Israel, and that children must be assured equal Job opportunities through vocational training and academic advantages.
HUMPHREY SAYS U.J.A. OBJECTIVES COINCIDE WITH U.S. CONCEPTS
In his address, which was the principal speech at last night’s opening session of the conference, Mr. Humphrey said that UJA objectives coincided with Administration concepts. “The Johnson Administration understands, as you understand, that there is an inseparable connection between human progress and social justice,” he stated. Citing the achievements of the UJA over the last 25 years, including the rescue of 3,000,000 lives and movement of 1,500,000 Jews to Israel and other free lands, he said this was “one of the most remarkable demonstrations of voluntarism in history.”
He told the UJA leaders that their undertaking had “displayed the same compassion and concern for the outcast and the downtrodden which motivated President Johnson and his Administration to initiate the campaign to eradicate the blight of poverty from these beloved shores.”
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