A radical revision of the standards of giving is necessary to meet the new Jewish situation, Joseph Willen, New York welfare leader, declared in an address on budgetary needs at the sixth annual general assembly of the Council of Jewish Welfare Funds, which closed here last night.
“We must reconcile ourselves to the fact that the completely abnormal existence we have been leading in the past months has become normal for the Jewish community,” Mr. Willen said. “Living in a world which is totally unreasonable, we must adjust ourselves to unreasonable demands and accept continuation of unreasonable burdens for years to come.”
Speakers at a luncheon session yesterday, in addition to James Marshall (JTA NEWS JAN. 24) were Mrs. Sidney C. Borg, vice-president of the New York Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, who presided, Mrs. Richard P. Limburg, chairman of the 1938 campaign of the New York Federation’s women’s division, and Sidney Hollander, of Baltimore, newly elected president of the Council.
Mr. Hollander said the process of developing leaders should be democratic. “Money and leadership are no more synonymous than age and wisdom,” he said. He urged increased responsibility for women and persons of merit, regardless of background and views. Mrs. Limburg stressed the importance of bringing men and women with prestige and influence in the community into active leadership of the Jewish community, but urged a “judicious mixture” of the various elements — Zionists, non-Zionists, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform.
Dr. Alvin Johnson, director of the New School for Social Research of New York, addressing a separate meeting on the American ORT Federation, said that “history teaches clearly, wherever refugees have gone in large numbers, economic and social life has bloomed.” He suggested the training of young refugees for small agricultural settlements and the development of “infectious centers of pleasant living in the countryside.” He asserted that “we should utilize the horrors of European persecution for raising the efficiency of and increasing interest in our own country and simultaneously blocking the gully between Jew and Gentile, quite the most dangerous case of erosion in our time.”
Dr. David Lvovitch, vice-president of the World ORT Union, said that “Americans here should also realize the need for retraining and improving the economic prospects of the 6,000,000 in Europe, most of whom must remain in their own countries.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
