Votes Expansion of Jewish Centers, Aid to Armed Forces; Hailed by Truman

The three-day annual meeting of the National Jewish Welfare Board concluded here tonight with the adoption of resolutions drawn from appoint comprehensive report based on a year-long survey of Jewish center and JWB ## prepared by 35 prominent Jewish educators and communal leaders.

President Truman, in a greeting to the JWB, read to the closing session by Frank L. Weil, JWB president, expressed his “admiration for the constructive approach taken by the JWB to carry out an intensive year-long survey of its function in, and service to, the community.” Mr. Truman, in his message, quoted a greeting President ?osevelt had sent to the JWB exactly ten years ago, in which the late Chief Executive and paid tribute to the JWB’s “potent influence” in the creation of good citizenship and wholesome character. He added:

“May I express here my feeling that the organization whose magnificent devotion to the men and women in uniform won it the gratitude of the United States Government was richly earned its mandate from the Jewish community of this country to extend its splendid and wholesome career of service to youth on the broadest possible base.”

The delegates recommended that the JWB, as “the qualified agency for service to the armed forces,” continue to provide for the religious and welfare needs of Jews in the armed forces and in Veterans Administration facilities; that a committee be named to examine the desirability of establishing a nation-wide Jewish physical and health education council and a Jewish cultural council, that consideration be given to the possibility of establishing a JWB “Book Club” under the sponsorship of the Jewish Book Council, with suitable volumes to be published or distributed in cooperation with other organizations, notably the Jewish Publication Society of America.

Another recommendation called for membership and participation in Jewish centers to be open to “all inhabitants of the local community without distinction as to race, color or creed.” However, the recommendation stresses, “it should be clear that the Jewish center is an agency maintained for the specialized needs of the Jewish spiritual and cultural group and that the primary emphasis of its program is upon Jewish content.”

WEIL RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT; MRS. WARBURG AGAIN NAMED HONORARY PRESIDENT

Frank L. Weil, New York City attorney, was re-elected president, to serve an eighth term, and Mrs. Felix M. Warburg, also of New York, was re-elected honorary vice-president. Dr. David de Sola Pool, spiritual leader of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City and chairman of the JWB Religious Activities Division, was elected vice-president. Vice-presidents named to continue in office are: Mrs. Alfred R. Bachrach, New York; Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel, San Francisco; Irving E. Dison, St. Louis; Mrs. Samuel R. Glogower, Detroit; Mrs. Walter E. Heller, Chicago; Earl M. Loeb, Jr., New York; and Donald Oberdorfer, Atlanta. Joseph H. Copen and Robert K. Raisler, both of New York, were re-elected treasurer and assistant treasurer, respectively, and Joseph Rosenzweig and Ralph K. Guinzburg, also of New York, will continue as secretary and assistant secretary.

At the closing session, Louis Kraft, executive director of the JWB, received an illuminated scroll to mark his thirtieth year with the organization. Mr. Weil also read into the record a resolution hailing Mr. Kraft’s role in the “visualization, planning and technique development of the USO,” characterized him as “a brilliant and penetrating architect of the Jewish center doctrine” and went on to describe him as “the foremost Jewish group worker in America.”