More than 1,000 leaders of American Jewish communities from all over the United States assembled in New York today for the 21st annual national conference of the United Jewish Appeal, which opens tomorrow at the Statler Hilton Hotel. They will consider a recommendation for the raising of a special fund over and above the proceeds of the regular 1959 campaign.
The recommendation was made by the Fifth UJA Overseas Study Mission on the soil of Israel last month to deal with the renewed immigration to Israel of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe and to tackle the dangerous pile-up of unmet needs for scores of thousands of newcomers who found haven in Israel in recent years.
The conference will also take up the further recommendation that communities supporting the nationwide United Jewish Appeal revise the scale of their allocations to the UJA, so that a just and fair allotment of funds may be made to the Appeal. At the same time, the delegates will conclude the 1958 UJA campaign, elect officers and set the objectives for the 1959 drive.
Including aid programs in Israel, the UJA must maintain vital services for more than 600,000 Jews who need help in some 25 countries. Tens of thousands of Jews in North Africa could not survive were it not for daily UJA aid; 21,000 Polish Jews recently repatriated from the Soviet Union must receive welfare aid and vocational training; other thousands of uprooted Jews in European centers must receive assistance while they wait for permanent haven in Israel or other free lands.
Speakers at the conference include U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York; Shimon Peres, director-general of Israel’s Defense Ministry; Dr. Nahum Goldmann and Dr. Dov Joseph, respectively chairman and treasurer of the Jewish Agency; Edward M.M. Warburg. UJA honorary chairman; Morris W. Berinstein, UJA general chairman; William Rosen-wald and Dewey D. Stone, UJA national chairmen; and Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, UJA executive vice 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.
