U.S. Jewish Communities Successfully Meeting 1951 Responsibilities, Report Shows

The Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds today made public a report showing that the Jewish communities in the United States are successfully meeting their 1951 overseas and domestic obligations. The report was written by Julian Freeman, president of the Council.

Mr. Freeman points out that the majority of community campaigns, now in their closing stages, are running ahead of comparable 1950 results. This was accomplished while the communities were coping with the vital tasks of coordinating their welfare fund campaigns with the Israel bond drive, efforts to stimulate investment and inter-governmental loans for Israel, and adjusting their local and health services to American defense needs.

Many communities have already raised more than their final 1950 totals, Mr. Freeman reports. These include Philadelphia, Miami, Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati, Akron, Atlantic City, Columbus, Dallas, Houston, Lynn, Memphis and San Diego. A great number of communities, also with campaigns incomplete, are within several thousand dollars of a similar achievement.

“The past few months have been a period of substantial achievements for our communities,” Mr. Freeman declares. “Israel, strained under the terrific impact of the flood of refugees, will get more dollars than it received last year from Spring welfare fund campaigns. For tens of thousands in Europe and the Middle East we have met the deadline of escape. At home our sick and aged, our children, our young men and women in the armed forces, the immigrants who have come to our shores, our own security, will benefit from what we have achieved.”

The success of the communities in meeting their responsibilities during the past few months adds up to a new level of maturity in Jewish life, he emphasizes. “They have shown that there is no substitute for solid community organization–that unity brings far greater dividends than diffusion and confusion ever could–that an adult approach to communities brings an adult response-and that it pays,” Mr. Freeman declares.

The C.J.F.W.F. president recalls the resolution passed by the communities at the 1951 General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federation and Welfare Funds, which recognized that if Israel’s Four Point Program was to succeed, each phase must add to the others, and “not substitute for them.” Similarly, they asserted that the special responsibility of the welfare funds under this program was to secure maximum free dollars for Israel. The translation of that blueprint into action, he says, was a major factor in the 1951 Spring success.