U.J.A. Sets $25,000,000 Goal for 1941 Drive

The reconstituted United Jewish Appeal today announced a goal of $25,000,000 for its 1941 drive.

At the same time, the UJA made public the basis of distribution of funds contained in the agreement which was signed last Thursday night. Of the first $8,800,000 the Joint Distribution Committee will receive $4,275,000, the United Palestine Appeal $2,525,000 and the National Refugee Service $2,000,000. The balance of the funds raised is to be distributed by an Allotment Committee to be constituted in the same manner as in 1940.

A statement by Chairman Abba Hillel Silver of the United Palestine Appeal and Fund-Raising Chairman Jonah B. Wise of the Joint Distribution Committee stressed that the united appeal had every right to expect greater support “on the basis of the pledges that have been given toward the reestablishment of a unified campaign organization for three important causes.” The statement follows:

“Since the dissolution of the United Jewish Appeal of 1940 was announced last December there has been an unmistakable expression of opinion from all segments of American Jewry regretting the dissolution even though the organizations involved believed that the causes which they served might benefit from an individual approach to the communities. Leaders throughout the country stated that their capacity for raising larger funds to meet the increasing responsibilities of the United Jewish Appeal agencies would be hindered through separate appeals. They declared that the emergency position in which millions of Jews find themselves during this war period required cooperative action among Jewish leaders in America.

“Recognizing that the support which their causes receive is dependent completely on the sympathy and good will of the Jewish communities of America, the Joint Distribution Committee and the United Palestine Appeal, after reviewing the various factors which constituted their original differences, have come to an agreement that will permit the continuation of the United Jewish Appeal as the central fund-raising instrument for the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service.

“The leadership of these organizations have responded to Jewish public opinion in America. They now turn to American Jewry confident that the United Jewish Appeal will receive that enlarged measure of support which they have every right to expect on the basis of the pledges that have been given toward the re-establishment of a unified campaign organization for three important causes.

“The needs of the Jewish people require from the free Jews of America unprecedented generosity. The establishment of a national quota is not an estimate of such needs but merely a framework of irreducible minimums which the agencies urgently require for their tasks. Such a framework endeavors to take into account the experience of the past but it must also consider the inescapable obligations of the present in order to direct attention to the increased requirements which must compel increased generosity from all Jews. Accordingly the United Jewish Appeal, conscious of its obligations to the Jews of the world as well as to the Jews of America earnestly hopes that new levels of giving will be established so that a goal of $25,000,000 may be reached for the needs of the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service.”