Cjfwf Mops Series of Community Programs; Discuss Jewish Community Needs in Europe

A delegation of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, having found “remarkable progress” by European Jewish communities crushed by the Nazis a quarter-century ago, proposed over the weekend that such visits be made on a regular basis by American and Canadian Jewish leaders. Louis Stern CJFWF Overseas Services Chairman and head of the 18-member delegation that spent 15 days in continental Europe and England, said “the visits proved productive beyond our expectations. He emphasized, in this regard, the rebuilding of the Jewish communities in Paris, Brussels and Antwerp. “Much of their previous population had either migrated or had been murdered by the Nazis,” Mr. Stern said. “The majority of the present residents of these communities have come to them within the past 25 years. It has been necessary to build a sense of community, of common purpose, to develop an experience of working together despite differences in background, religious practices and beliefs, or indifference to formal religion.”

In its conferences with Jewish leaders abroad, the CJF delegation discussed a wide variety of Jewish problems, including college youth and faculty, education and culture, communal development, laymen’s involvement in Jewish affairs, development of young Jewish leaders, skilled professional staff recruitment, fund raising, social welfare community relations, and the work of the Joint Distribution Committee. The CJFWF. which held its spring meeting here, permitted the participation of student spokesmen for the first time. Those taking part were Stephen P. Cohen, a doctoral candidate and campus editor at Harvard, and J. Blum, a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. The delegates also discussed community programs to fight drug abuse, trends in allocations to social and welfare agencies, Federation planning for Jewish education, financing programs of Jewish immigration and immigrant absorption in Israel, programs for leadership development and greater involvement of college youth and faculty in Jewish communal affairs. Delegates from Milwaukee. Cleveland and Philadelphia reported favorably on projects in which they sent small television crews to Israel. A CJFWF spokesman said that various proposals on these matters “still have to be fleshed out.”