The 32nd General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds concluded its five-day session here today with the adoption of a number of resolutions dealing with the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union, American Jewish participation in the fight for equal rights for Negroes, aid to Israel and to other overseas Jewish communities, Jewish education, immigration legislation and other subjects of interest to the American Jewish community. Loris Stern, of South Orange, N. J., was re-elected to a second term as CJFWF president.
Expressing “grave concern and dismay” over the “continued and intensive assaults in the Soviet Union on Jews and on all aspects of distinctive Jewish life,” the resolution on the situation of Soviet Jews enumerated the developments which have taken place recently against Jews in Russia, and stated:
“We join with others in the appeals to the conscience of the world to press the Soviet Union for the early and full removal of these discriminations, and we urge coordinated participation of the Jewish community in appropriate actions for this objective.”
In its resolution on the role of the Jewish community in the struggle of the Negroes and other minority groups for civil rights, the General Assembly placed every Jewish organization in the United States under obligation to advance the cause of equality by all means appropriate to it as a sectarian agency.
“The Jewish organizations,” the resolution declared, “should review their policies and practices on employment, their services when offered to the general public, and other aspects of their operations, to assure that they are fully consistent with this principle. They should strive to place their patronage, including the holding of public functions, only with companies and places that practice non-discrimination.”
COMMENDS KENNEDY’S IMMIGRATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS PROPOSALS
The 1,200 delegates lauded President Kennedy for his proposals to enact legislation which would replace the national origins quota system with a more equitable, non-discriminatory formula for the admission of those seeking to enter the United States as immigrants.
In another resolution, they voiced approval of the President’s civil rights legislative proposals, and called upon both political parties to join in bi-partisan action to assure the earliest possible enactment by Congress of comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation.
The Assembly expressed gratification over the fact that the Jewish Agency for Israel, Inc. was considering recommendations by the CJFWF with regard to the merger of overlapping organizations “notably the Jewish Agency for Israel, Inc. and the United Israel Appeal,” and also the elimination of the confusion in the names of the several organizations called “Jewish Agency for Israel.”
The Assembly also expressed gratification over the further progress made during the past year in implementation of the recommendations of the CJFWF on community-financed services in Israel, notably: The study of voluntary fund-raising in Israel, use of American expert technical assistance, initiation of long-range planning and establishment of priorities, consolidation of agricultural settlements, increased rental housing for immigrants, elimination of American grants to the “constructive enterprise” welfare and educational institutions.
JEWISH AGENCY TREASURER APPEALS FOR INCREASED AID FOR ISRAEL
An appeal to American Jewry to increase their contributions to meet the extremely urgent needs in immigration and absorption work in Israel was made here by Louis A, Pincus, treasurer of the Jewish Agency for Israel. He told the Assembly delegates that the great progress in Israel had tended to “dazzle the onlookers” but, he stressed, there were also “less inspiring sights” which are the reverse of the bright developments of the State of Israel.
“While Israel and American Jewry have played so important a role in the great work of helping the settlement of immigrants in Israel, and can point with pride to the epic greatness in the achievements of the immigration of over a million Jews, there are seeds of prejudice in the relatively less successful, more prosaic work of integration,” Mr. Pincus stated. Specifically, he said:
1. Thirty thousand families in Israel still live in one-and-a-half room flats, with scores of thousands more living in vacated Arab homes in new open slums.
2. Four thousand families continue to live in asbestos huts in 17 temporary maabarot quarters that have become all too permanent.
3. There are at least about 8,000 families and individuals who comprise a backlog of social welfare cases for which no rehabilitation has been accomplished–elderly men and women with no families to fall back on, invalids and handicapped, the blind sufferers from chronic diseases, mental and retarded cases, and lastly, the bedridden.
4. Despite great progress in agriculture, and the well-cultivated appearance of the Israeli landscape, not one of the 400 settlements put on the land since the establishment of the State has reached the stage of full viability. Even the needs of youth have net been met. With the fourth Aliyah training programs limited by budget to 10,000 annually, no more than a half and possibly only a third of the youngsters have been properly trained.
“And all of this,” he emphasized, “applies to the older immigrants, not to the thousands of families who came to Israel this year and will come next year.”
“With immigration showing no signs of abating,” Mr. Pincus continued, “and with a class of second-grade citizens being created, the Jewish Agency has had to reduce its next year’s budget by $10,000,000, and is being hampered in long-term planning.
“It is essential that we should no longer be weighed down by the unsolved problems of yesterday,” the Jewish Agency treasurer appealed. “Sweeping them under the carpet may give temporary relief to our consciences. It is no answer to the temporary relief to our consciences. It is no answer to the humanitarian challenge facing the United Jewish Appeal in the days to come.”
Mr. Pincus stressed that there is a disproportionate division of responsibility for financing this program, which places an unfair burden upon the people of Israel. The Israeli people, he said, account for 70 percent of this cost, while the Jews of the rest of the world contribute only 30 per cent. He urged the delegates to go back to their communities and mobilize Jewish people for an out pouring of generosity that will more truly reflect their proportionate share of this world-wide Jewish responsibility.
J.D.C. FACES INCREASED DEMANDS IN NORTH AFRICA AND EUROPE
Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee, reported at the session that the massive movement of Jews from North Africa and Eastern Europe in the past two years has increased demands for help on the Jewish communities and the JDC in Western Europe, as well as on the JDC-Malben program aiding aged, ill and handicapped newcomers to Israel. “But despite this emigration there has been no lessening in the JDC burden in North Africa,” he stressed.
In North Africa, Mr. Leavitt reported an “internal migration” has brought thousands of Jews from the isolated villages of the hinterlands to the large cities almost as rapidly as the emigrants departed. Many arrived with only what they were able to carry and had to turn to JDC-supported welfare and medical agencies for food and other basic necessities. They brought with them also diseases which the JDC medical program had eradicated in the cities.
“The renewed movement of refugees to other lands has created problems in areas where problems did not exist before,” he stated. “All of Western Europe is in a state of flux as refugees continue to pour in, seeking a haven and struggling to rebuild their lives. JDC must provide not only basic health and welfare needs but also the necessary communal institutions to enable them to live as Jews. These include synagogue-centers, Jewish schools and homes for the aged.”
The Assembly adopted a resolution lauding the JDC on its 50th anniversary and emphasizing that this anniversary is an event of worldwide significance and acclaim. “The massive humanitarian achievements of the JDC through this half century are inestimable–in emigration, resettlement, and reconstruction of hundreds of thousands of families, meeting every type of need, restoring entire communities to independence and self-respect. The salvation of these lives and the well-being of these communities are the living and enduring monuments to the JDC,” the resolution said.
LOWENSTEIN REPORTS ON COOPERATION IN COMMUNITY RELATIONS
Alan V. Lowenstein, head of the CJFWF Committee on Cooperation in Jewish Community Relations, reported at another major session of the Assembly that discussions are proceeding between the National Community Relations Advisory Council and the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League for the purpose of having the ADL join the NCRAC which is composed of six national agencies and 69 local and regional agencies involved in community relations activities.
Mr. Lowenstein also reported that his committee has met separately with representatives of the American Jewish Committee and the NCRAC with a view to starting joint discussions on the participation of the American Jewish Committee in the NCRAC cooperative process. The Assembly adopted a resolution urging early initiation of such joint discussions and the utmost effort to reach an agreement.
In another session, Henry L. Zucker, executive director of the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, pointed out that Jewish federations in the U.S. and Canada are turning more’ to foundation and endowment funds as an additional source of income. He reported that, since 1953, endowment fund programs of 12 large-city federations have grown from a total of nearly $32,000,000 to more than $70,000,000. He said that this experience indicates that endowment funds are “a rich potential source of supplementary financing for the federation and its agencies.”
At the banquet which climaxed the Assembly, Dr. Buell G. Gallagher, president of City College of New York, delivered the third annual Herbert R. Abeles Memorial Address, honoring a past Council president. His topic was “American Human Goals–A Paradox of Affluence and Poverty.” Another highlight of the banquet was the eleventh annual presentation of the William J. Shroder Memorial Award, honoring the founder and first president of the Council. The Awards were presented for pioneering advances in social welfare.
In addition to re-electing Louis Stern as president of the CJFWF for a second term, the Assembly also re-elected at the closing session the following officers: Vice-presidents–Louis J. Fox, Baltimore; D. Lou Harris, Toronto; Judge Irving Hill, Los Angeles; Carlos L. Israel’s, New York; Benjamin Lazrus, New York; Judge Theodore Levin, Detroit; treasurer–Edwin Rosenberg of New York. Mrs. Joseph Cohen, New Orleans, and A.D. Davis, Chicago, were elected as vice-presidents and Lewis H. Weinstein, Boston, was elected secretary.
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.
