The three-day annual national conference of the United Jewish Appeal concluded here today with the unanimous adoption of a $151,500,000 goal for 1952 and with the drafting, by acclamation, of Edward M.M. Warburg to serve for the second successive year as general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal. Doctor Joseph J. Schwartz was re-elected U.J.A. executive vice-chairman.
The $151,500,000 quota was described in the main conference resolution as a minimum sum which American Jews must raise in meeting the needs of the Jews in Israel and in other countries amounting to $175,400,500. The resolution noted that the Jews of other democratic countries would divide among themselves the responsibility for raising the balance of $23,900,500. This is the first time since 1949 that a special goal has been voted as a U.J.A. campaign objective.
Mr. Warburg, in accepting the general chairmanship, told the conference: “Our help in 1952 must take a new turn. Our principle objective must be to aid Israel consolidate the great gains she has made to date. For three and one-half years American Jews have sponsored the greatest homecoming in history as they helped more than 700,000 Jews reach Israel. Now we must turn the great homecoming into a great ‘homemaking’ – which will see the immigrants who have come properly housed, fully employed and contributing abundantly to Israel’s development.”
Dr. Schwartz told the conference that the $15,500,000 goal “represents a realistic apportionment of a tremendous financial need which American Jews must meet as a matter of responsibility, conscience and urgency.” He lauded American Jewry for its contribution of $85,000,000 to the 1951 United Jewish Appeal.
Declaring that American Jews will be called on in 1952 as they were called on at the end of World War II to give out of every resource of their time, their energy and their means. Dr. Schwartz said: “We have no other choice because the Jews of Israel and the homeless in other lands have no other choice. Either we give for their rescue from economic peril and darnkess or they will go down. Israel must not go down. The homeless must not be abandoned.”
$7,000,000 PRESENTED BY LEADERS OF COMMUNITIES AT FINAL SESSION
Checks totalling $7,000,000 were presented at the closing session of the U.J.A. conference by leaders of various communities to William Rosenwald, national chairman of the U.J.A. Mr. Rosenwald urged all communities to continue their efforts to forward cash to the national offices of the U.J.A. on account of their 1951 efforts.
The conference adopted a resolution expressing anxiety over the health of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel. The resolution registered the “deep affection “for Dr. Weizmann of the 3,000 organized Jewish communities in the U.S. represented at the U.J.A. parley. “We pray for his rapid and complete recovery both for his own sake and for the sake of the many thousands who look to him for guidance and leadership” the resolution said.
CONFERENCE CALLS FOR GREATER NATIONAL-LOCAL CO-ORDINATION
The conference also adopted a resolution calling for a greater degree of national and local co-ordination in planning the drive of the United Jewish Appeal and the Israel bond issue. The resolution recommends that local committees establish coordinating committees where none now exist and that all local co-ordinating committees meet immediately to develop the necessary plans for 1952.
Israel Ambassador Abba S. Eban, on an address to the delegates, described the United Jewish Appeal as the “first in the field as an instrument of massive financial effort for Jewish rehabilitation.” He expressed the hope that the $151,500,000 goal for 1952 will be effectively attained and that “a successful United Jewish Appeal will radiate its victorious example to all other branches of our common effort.”
The Israeli Ambassador emphasized that the preservation of the Jewish state depends upon the success of several efforts “for economic consolidation.” He listed these as aid received from the U.J.A., the sale of Israeli bonds and the intergovernmental aid from the United States. He revealed that “our efforts in Washington to enlist governmental aid have prospered and are still going forward in an atmosphere of co-operation between the Department of State and the Embassy of Israel.”
CO-CHAIRMEN OF JEWISH AGENCY ADDRESS DELEGATES
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, co-chairman of the Jewish Agency, addressing the conference, warned that Israel today is at the crossroads between “failure and glorious achievement.” Just returned from Jerusalem, Dr. Goldmann emphasized that he was not exaggerating when he said that “the sense of crisis in Israel today is in many ways as great as it was in 1948” when the Jewish state was founded and then fought for its independence against the Arab armies. He stressed that this crisis “in some ways is greater, for there is more to lose.”
Dr. Goldmann called upon all to join forces in the common effort to safeguard Israel’s future. “In the face of this job,” he declared, “the political squabbles and ideological clashes which inevitably arise in a democratic state and in a democratic movement such as the Zionist movement, must take second place.”
John W. Gibson, chairman of the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, told the conference that the United States and Israel are “freedom’s port of call for refugees.” He pointed out that “the U.S. and Israel have played leading roles in seeking the solution of the refugee problem inherited from World War II.” He lauded the Jewish state for doing “one of the most magnificent jobs of resettling displaced persons and refugees in the world.”
Berl Locker, chairman of the Jewish Agency who came from Jerusalem to address the session, made reference to Premier David Ben Gurion’s statement of last Wednesday in the Israel Parliament. He declared that Mr. Ben Gurion’s comments “have been subject to unfortunate misunderstanding.” He stressed that “Mr. Ben Gurion could not have said nor could he have meant to imply that there is no longer any need to worry about the financing of mass immigration to Israel.”
“What Mr. Ben Gurion did say and what is true.” Mr. Locker asserted, “is that within the foreseeable future the sources of catastrophic immigration now available to us will be exhausted.” Mr. Locker emphasized that Mr. Ben Gurion did not say that “there will be a lack of Jews able and willing to go to Israel but that there will be a lack of countries willing to let them go.”
Mr. Locker declared that the pace of Israel’s immigration will depend on the outcome of the 1952 U.J.A. campaign. “The greater the success of the U.J.A. campaign in the United States,” he declared, “the more rapidly will the entire immigration program be consolidated and the more successful will be the absorption of the immigrants into Israel’s economy. There will be no limitation on immigration from countries “where Jewish communities are in immediate danger,” he pledged. The principle of unlimited immigration will also apply, he explained, to countries where organization of immigration is beyond the Jewish Agency’s control.
Dr. Abba Hillel Silver urged the United States not to appease the Arab states at the expense of Israel. He called for “large-visioned statesmanship” on the part of the United States, capable of giving maximum support both to Israel and her Arab neighbors. He emphasized that the Arab world can make peace with Israel only if it is convinced by the affirmative attitude and co-operation of the great powers, that the state of Israel is here to stay. He called for strong support of the United Jewish Appeal in the coming year.
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ASKS U.S. AID FOR ISRAEL
United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, addressing the session, hailed Israel as a democratic “symbol of hope and strength” in the feudal ridden Near East. He urged full American governmental aid to help make the Jewish State “the shining example of what democratic principles can do in a continent ridden with feudalism.” Heartily endorsing the U.J.A., he told the delegates:
“Israel is a strong addition to the growing force of nations who seek to uphold and defend the sanctity of the individual and his freedom. Israel is a vital link in a free association of freedom-loving nations and peoples. When we preserve Israel, we make that link stronger and forge a stronger union of the free world.”
David Zvi Pinkas, Israeli Minister of Communications, re-affirmed the reliance of the Israel Government on the U.J.A., declaring that there was “not an atom of truth” in the contention that “the Government of Israel has concentrated all its interest in the Bond Drive to the exclusion of the United Jewish Appeal.” He emphasized that “far from standing in mutual contradiction the U.J.A. and the Bond Drive are, in view of the Israel Government, complimentary operations each engaged in its special sphere of aid to Israel.”
Rudolf G. Sonneborn, national chairman of the United Palestine Appeal, who presided at the opening session, told the conference that the chief task facing U.P.A. agencies in 1952 is “to speed the process of making immigrants a productive force within the social and economic framework of Israel.” Ellis A. Radinsky, executive director of the U.P.A., said its agencies in Israel would require $147,825,000 in 1952 for transportation, absorption and agricultural programs.
Mose ###, European director general of the Joint Distribution Committee, said that in 1952, the J.D.C. will require a minimum of $23,507,300 for relief and welfare programs in Europe and the Moslem countries and for hard-core cases in Israel. Walter Beiringer, president of the United Service for New Americans, said that the U.S.N.A. and the New York Association for New Americans will require $4,068,200 in 1952.
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.
