Louis Broido, Commissioner of the Department of Commerce and Industrial Development of New York City was elected chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee at its 51st annual meeting this weekend. He succeeds Edward. M.M. Warburg who served as JDC chairman for 25 years. Mr. Warburg was named honorary chairman.
More than 300 Jewish leaders from all parts of the United States and Canada, members of the JDC National Council, at the meeting adopted a budget of $30,425,000 for 1966 to finance welfare and rehabilitation programs for needy Jews in 30 countries around the world. They also elected Charles H. Jordan executive vice-chairman and director-general, replacing the late Moses A. Leavitt who died last June. Samuel L. Haber was elected assistant executive vice-chairman.
Mr. Warburg, reviewing the global Jewish scene over the 25 years during which he served as chairman, observed that it was “an extraordinary period and an extraordinary experience. It has seen the wiping out of great Jewish communities,” he said. “It has seen the most extraordinary exodus known to man and it has seen the establishment and strengthening of new communities.”
During those twenty-five years Mr. Warburg said, the Joint Distribution Committee operated “a lifeline of rescue, revival and rehabilitation. Yet today, after all that we have given, after the millions we have saved and revived and rehabilitated, there are still hundreds of thousands who depend on us, who look to us, who need us.”
400,000 NEEDY JEWS WILL REQUIRE JDC AID IN 1966, JORDAN REPORTS
In a panel on overseas needs which followed, Mr. Jordan reported that there were as many Jews in need of JDC assistance in 1965 as in 1964. However, as a result of the loss of nearly one-quarter of its income JDC was forced to effect economies and curtail its programs in virtually every area.
Among the consequences Mr. Jordan noted were: drastic curtailment of clothing distribution in Morocco, Tunisia, and Iran; tightening of eligibility requirements for admission to Malben old age homes in Israel; a cut of more than $1,000,000 in aid to the French Jewish community despite the continuing in flux of North African Jews into that country; and the freezing of JDC relief and welfare rolls in Eastern Europe and other countries.
Mr. Jordan reported that some 400,000 needy Jews will require JDC assistance in 1966. In many instances this help will be critical, he added. “In 1965 we lost nearly one-quarter of our income. Though a small part of this loss was made up by increased giving through the United Jewish Appeal, there was still a substantial loss in the amount of money available to us.”
“JDC entered 1965 with foreboding. We were helpless, we could only pray there would be no new emergency, no greater hardships. And because the needs are as great now as they were a year ago, we approach 1966 with the same anxiety, with the same questions, with the same problems. Only the American Jewish community can supply the answers,” he concluded.
Other JDC officers, all of whom were reelected are: James N. Rosenberg, honorary chairman; I. Edwin Goldwasser, honorary treasurer; Sol Satinsky, chairman of the National Council; vice-chairman: James H. Becker, I. Edwin Goldwasser, Monroe Goldwater, Walter A. Haas, William Rosenwald, Sol Satinsky, Joseph J. Schwarts and Jack D. Weiler; Joseph I. Lubin and Irving H. Sherman, co-treasurers; and Edwin Rosenberg, comptroller. Officers newly elected were Dorothy L. Speiser, secretary and assistant treasurer and Herbert Katzki, deputy director-general.
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.
