Opponents of National Budgeting Take Issue with President of Council of Jewish Federations

Ezra Shapiro, chairman of the Committee To Oppose National Budgeting, today released a statement taking issue with Sidney Hollander, president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, who had quoted statements in support of national budgeting from a letter written by Charles P. Taft, acting chairman of the President’s War Relief Control Board. The statement reads as follows:

“It is with regret that I note that Mr. Sidney Hollander, president of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, has invoked the authority of Mr. Charles P. Taft in order to strengthen the council’s pressure on American Jewish communities to adopt national budgeting.

“It is not the first time that Mr. Hollander has invoked the help of non-Jewish officials to resolve a problem which should be left to the Jewish community for determination. With just as much enthusiasm and zeal, Mr. Hollander some years ago urged the Jewish communities of America to submerge their welfare funds in local war chests. Mr. Taft, was also called upon at that time to lend the force of his prestige to support of such a program.

“The events of the past few years have disclosed how mistaken were the hopes and advice of those who felt that only uniformly good results could follow joinder of welfare funds with war cheats. It is generally admitted that substantial losses were registered, not alone in terms of funds when Jewish needs were at their most tragic, but also in the deterioration of Jewish community programs which had taken years to build up. Mr. Hollander’s record of advice on what is good for Jewish life in America would warrant modesty on his part.

“The device of applying pressure by non-Jewish governmental authorities on specifically Jewish issues is not new and will be resented by the Jewish community. Jewish communities are already beginning to speak in very determined tones to insist that no central committee set up by the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds be empowered with the determination of life and death for Jewish agencies. Mr. Hollander and the council, with all their pretenses at being objective, will not deter the communities from defeating national budgeting by this device of invoking non-Jewish pressure on specifically Jewish issues.”