Study of All Young People’s Groups Proposed at National Jewish Youth Conference

A complete study of the history, purposes and resources of all national Jewish youth organizations was proposed here this week-end at the National Jewish Welfare Board’s National Jewish Youth Conference by conference chairman Arnulf Pins. Two hundred delegates from 65 communities in 24 states are attending the parley.

Mr. Pins also recommended the establishment of travel programs for Jewish youth in this country to visit Israel and other Jewish communities throughout the world. The chairman also urged that all Jewish youth groups which have not yet done so be encouraged to affiliate with the conference. A functional program for regional youth and young adult councils, the publication of more program aids geared to the needs of these councils, and intensified participation and sponsorship of youth programs during Jewish Book Month, Jewish Music Festival, Jewish History Week and Jewish Education Month were also recommended.

Reporting on the first year’s accomplishments of the conference, Mr. Pins said that the achievement of permanence and maturity and the gaining of recognition as a self-governing representative body of Jewish youth were high among the body’s fulfilled goals. Among its other achievements was the conclusion of plans for conducting a leadership training seminar in Europe next summer.

A renaissance of Jewish cultural life in America is under way, Rabbi Herman Pollack, Hillel Foundation director at Brooklyn College, told the parley. He cited as evidence a renewed interest in the Jewish arts, the Hebrew and Yiddish languages and literature and in Jewish history. Jewish youth, he said, has been part of this rediscovery of American Jewry’s heritage.