Intensified support of voluntary welfare agencies as an essential aid to national defense was urged last night by speakers addressing more than 1,500 Jewish community leaders at the annual dinner of the New York and Brooklyn Federations of Jewish Charities at the Hotel Commodore.
The annual dinner launched the fifth merged campaign of the two Federations for funds to meet the 1941 needs of the 116 affiliated health and welfare institutions serving Greater New York. No campaign goal was made public at the dinner. An army of more than 6,000 volunteer workers, enrolled in 140 trade and special divisions, will take the field this morning to organize the city on behalf of the campaign.
A letter addressed to these workers by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was made public at the dinner by George Z. Medalie, President of the New York Federation. Mr. Knox noted that, in such periods of strain as America now faces, “the social services of such organizations as the Federation of Jewish Charities, with its far-flung activities, are a major factor in maintaining our national morale.”
Speakers at the dinner were Wendell L. Willkie: Mr. Medalie: Hugh Grant Straus president of the Brooklyn Federation; Ralph E. Samuel, 1941 campaign chairman; and Mrs. Nathan L. Goldstein, chairman of the Women’s Division 1941 campaign effort. Samuel D. Leidesdorf was dinner chairman.
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.
