Planning Social Welfare Program

Notes and News, the publication issued by the National Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds and the Bureau of Jewish Social Research, commenting on Jewish community planning, says:

The transfer of relief responsibility from voluntary to public agencies has not had, as was at one time feared, the effect of deadening lay interest in Jewish social welfare activities. On the contrary, lay participation in Jewish welfare is taking cognizance of the fact that Jewish social work has a direct relationship to Jewish communal problems in general and that the existing welfare organizations may serve as the starting point for a broader and more comprehensive program. This emergence of lay leadership and the purposefulness of its direction, offers most heartening proof of the vitality of Jewish social welfare.

Particularly encouraging has been the caliber of discussions of the lay and professional leadership at regional meetings and other conferences. Discussion has become more progressive and realistic. In nearly every community there are to be found evidences of a heightened interest, evidenced in more energetic fund-raising efforts for local Jewish Federations, in broader discussions, in attempts to organize community councils for the consideration of general Jewish social welfare matters. As concrete expressions of these tendencies, many communities are beginning to consider, to plan, and to organize Jewish welfare funds, for more efficient fund-raising and distribution on behalf of important local, national and overseas activities which have not been undertaken previously by local federations.