New York Savings Banks Solicit Applications for Jobs from Jews

The Savings Banks Association of New York State, coordinating body of the state’s mutual saving banks, issued today an illustrated booklet soliciting applications for jobs from people of “a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds.” The booklet — the first of its kind — was warmly praised by the American Jewish Committee, which has been active in opposing job discrimination in the fields of banking, insurance, utilities and large corporate business.

Representatives of the American Jewish Committee have been meeting with representatives of the Association on problems of discrimination following a study made by the AJCommittee last year which revealed that there are less than 3.5 percent of Jews among the 750 trustees of New York City’s 50 mutual savings banks, and less than 2.5 percent of Jews among their 400 top executives.

A year after the original report was made public, the AJCommittee reported that these banks had increased the number of their Jewish trustees by more than one-third although the number of Jewish executive officers had remained substantially the same. A national survey of executive positions in the 50 leading commercial banks across the country revealed last September that Jews were filling only 1.3 percent of the senior posts and 0.9 percent of the middle-management posts.

Theodore Ellenoff, vice-president of the American Jewish Committee’s New York chapter and chairman of its Civil Rights and Social Action Committee, said: “We welcome the publication and wide distribution of this booklet as one of a series of actions taken by the State’s mutual savings banks to let people of all backgrounds know that this field is not only open to them but offers opportunities for advancement. The booklet states this policy clearly and concisely, and as it is put into the hands of school guidance counsellors and of the public and private agencies which work with minority and disadvantaged people, the ethnic and religious balance in the State’s mutual savings banks should become more nearly representative of the population.”