Women Map Plans for UJA Drive; Raised $103,000,000 Since 1946

Plans for 1954 activity for the United Jewish Appeal were mapped today at the opening session of a two-day meeting of the national board of the UJA Women’s Division which is taking place at Belmont Plaza Hotel. The Women’s Division stimulated the raising of more than $103,000,000 since its establishment as a campaign unit in 1946.

Addressing the session, Edward M.M. Warburg, general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, said that Israel’s rise in the past five and a half years to a position of “democratic pre-eminence” in its part of the world “represents a heartening victory for the cause of freedom, which since the end of World War II has suffered too many setbacks and defeats in the advance of dictatorship and totalitarian power.”

Mr. Warburg told the UJA women leaders that “all who value the free way of life must resolve not to let Israel stand alone as she presses forward to consolidate her free institutions which are without parallel in the entire Middle East.” He called special attention “to Israel’s recent passing of the half-way mark to economic stability and independence,” and emphasized that “only those dedicated to peace, and working for peace, in Israel and in the United States, could have achieved such dramatic progress, in so short a time, against so many dangerous obstacles.”

The UJA general chairman urged the women leaders to press for “increased giving and increased voluntary efforts” to help the United Jewish Appeal attain its 1954 goal of close to $120,000,000. He asserted that “only if we make the supreme effort which the needs of freedom and historic events now dictate as necessary, will Israel be able to strengthen its free way of life despite the tensions and dangers that hem it in on every side.”

Dr. Joseph Schwartz, executive vice-chairman of the UJA, called upon the women leaders to help the United Jewish Appeal “make 1954 a year of strengthening for the close to 500,000 distressed and refugee men, women and children who depend on us in a total of 21 countries throughout the free world.” He pointed out that a total of 475,000 persons require direct assistance, and that of this number, 335,000 are in Israel, 130,000 are in European and Moslem lands, and 10,000 are either already in, or due soon, in the United States as refugee newcomers.

Mrs. Hal Horne, newly named chairman of the Women’s Division, reported that in 1953 the women’s drive reached into 200 American communities and that a prime objective this year is to expand the number of local units participating in the nationwide drive. She told the national board that more than 300 top women contributors are expected to attend the launching of the women’s drive at the National Inaugural Conference in Miami Beach next month, and that this is the largest number of women ever to respond to the opening of a UJA women’s division annual campaign.