CJF Conclave Maps Jewish Needs at Home, Abroad; Uja, Youth Needs High on Agenda

A wide-ranging review of Jewish needs at home and abroad, particularly those of Israel, was presented here today at the 39th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds to some 1,500 Jewish communal leaders. Philip Bernstein, CJF executive vice-president, describing financial requirements for the coming year which American Jewry must raise, said $400 million was needed for the United Jewish Appeal’s 1971 campaigns and $100 million for other needs. He described American Jewry as “moving ahead in this new period of our history and relationships, of inter-dependence of independent communities, to learn from each other to strengthen each other and to enrich Jewish life everywhere.” In describing Jewish “disabilities at home” which the organized Jewish community must act on, Mr. Bernstein cited drug abuse as having taken a place “on the agenda of the communities.” He told the delegates that Jewish youth “are far from immune from this disease which plagues America.” He said Jewish communal agencies must act to find prevention and cures for the problem.

Louis J. Fox of Baltimore, former CJF president and present chairman of the CJF subcommittee on funding campus projects, reported that the CJF had created, for the first time, a fund of $50,000 for such programs. Noting that at the 1969 CJF convention, he had urged Jewish communities to invite Jewish students “to give us the benefit of their ideals, their convictions, their abilities, and an opportunity to share in shaping our policies and programs,” he reported that for the first time in the history of CJF conventions, young people were present as official delegates from their communities. He said 100 students from 20 college campuses were taking part in Assembly deliberations. Mr. Bernstein reported that in 1969, a survey of the 17 largest Jewish communities had shown that grants totaling $744,750 had been made by federations to Hillel Foundations and other campus groups and that in 1970, the total had risen to $1,277,400. He said a major concern of the community agencies has been to involve students in Jewish life “but not just to learn about it but rather to be a part of it.” He said students had indicated they wanted “something better than we had given them and we have put them on the boards and committees of the communal organizations.”

Mr. Bernstein said that during the past year “a number of communities have had the wisdom to mount programs for systematic recruitment, training and placement of hundreds of outstanding men and women in communal agencies.” He said that professional staffs, no matter how able, did not substitute for lay leadership and said “we must have the ablest and largest number of lay leaders in Jewish communal activities.” The Director General of the Israeli Premier’s office, Dr. Yaacov Herzog, called for voluntary long-term fund-raising by Jewish communities as evidence of their dedication to Jewish faith, unity and survival. On the political front, Dr. Herzog said recent events in the Middle East suggested a possible stifling of the Baath revolution and the possible end of the Nasserite revolution. He contended that Egypt’s new Sadat regime cannot afford either to renew full-scale fighting with Israel or to ignore the 19-year constancy of Egyptians’ per capita income ($160).