Reconstitution of United Jewish Appeal Announced Officially; $80,000,000 Sought This Year

An agreement reconstituting the United Jewish Appeal as the combined national fund-raising body for the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service, was signed here today, An official announcement to this effeot was issued by Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, Hermen L. Weisman and Edwin Rosenberg, leaders of the three organizations.

As a result of this agreement the United Jewish Appeal will have to raise $80,000,000 to meet the estimated needs of its agencies for the current year. Last year American Jews contributed approximately $30,000,000 to the United Jewish Appeal. the text of the announcement of the re-establishment of the U. J. A. reads as follows:

“We wish to advise all Jewish communities throughout the country that the United Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Overseas Needs and Palestine has been reconstituted. the Joint Distribution Committee, the United Palestine Appeal and the National Refugee Service have reached an agreement whereby the United Jewish Appeal will serve as the combined national fund-raising instrument for these agencies.

“The separate appeals which have been conducted by the constituent bodies during the past four months have been abandoned and all funds raised in behalf of the Jeint Distribution Committee, United Palestine Appeal and National Refugee Service throughout the year 1945 will be distributed among these agencies in accordance with a nutually acceptable formula.

“The needs of the organizations represented in the United Jewish Appeal are far greater this year than ever before during the past twelve years of suffering and destruction for the Jewish people. The budgetary estimates of the Joint Distribution Committee, United Palestine Appeal and National Refugee Service are in excess of $80,000,000 in 1945. This unprecedented sum represents a challenge to the generosity of Jews in every community in the United States. Victory in Europe has unrolled before us a scene of indescribable devastation, widespread distress and mass homelessness which have affected the surviving Jews with deepest intensity. It is imperative that American Jewry provide assistance on the largest possible scale for the hundreds of thousands who look to us for aid in their physical, cultural and communal needs. We must also plan for the settlement in Palestine of additional great massea and make possible their re-integration there and the building of a new life of freedom and security for them in the Jewish homeland.

NEEDS OF JEWS IN EUROPE AND PALESTINE CITED IN CALL TO U. S. JEWRY

“The Joint Distribution Committee is faced with the tasks of providing emergency relief to large sections of the estimated 1,500,000 Jewish survivors in various parts of Europe and to aid in their economic, cultural and religious rehabilitation. These Jews need every elementary requirement of life. We in America must strengthen their hope that their survival will bring them to a new era of dignity. We must give them the means of rebuilding their physical and communal lives.

“The United Palestine Appeal is American Jewry’s instrument for the rehabilitation of the Jewish people in Palestine. The foundations of the Jewish National Home must be strengthened so that thousands of other immigrants may be settled, returning soldiers given a place on the land, large-scale land areas acquired and every channel promoted for the economic, industrial and oultural rebirth of the Jewish people in Palestine.

“The National Refugee Service has the responsibility of assisting in the adjustment and integration of those victims of Nazism who have found a haven in the United States and for assisting in reuniting in America of dispersed families. The possible displacement of refugees resulting from the industrial reconversion in the United States will be one of the many new needs for refugee aid in America.

“In the campaigns that are now in progress in various parts of the country Jewish communities have indicated their awareness of the magnitude of the relief and reconstruction problems that must be dealt with in this transitional period from war to peace. We trust that the reconstitution of the United Jewish Appeal will spur then on to more intensive effort so that recovery, security and freedom may be assured to the remnants of the Jewish people in the post-war world.”