The General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds concluded its four-day session here today with a call to Jewish communities throughout the country for early mobilization and intensification of fund-raising efforts for Jewish needs in this country and abroad.
The more than 1, 000 Jewish community leaders who attended the Assembly reaffirmed their determination to provide adequately for these needs. They adopted a resolution stating: “Buttressed by a budgeting process that recognizes the growing needs for rescue and resettlement beyond our shores and notably in Israel, we rededicate ourselves to marshall our campaign structures, our leadership and our manpower with the most effective techniques applicable in each community to insure a response fully commensurate with the magnitude of the need.”
In a special resolution on Israel, the assembled Jewish leaders joined in celebrating the nation’s tenth anniversary. Paying tribute to the remarkable accomplishments of this very young country, ” the resolution said: “Under the most difficult conditions Israel has been and remains the bulwark of democracy in the Middle East. It has been the salvation of over 900, 000 refugees, who found it necessary to flee there in search of freedom and security. The pressure of many additional thousands who need to enter make it mandatory that Israel be able to continue in its role as a haven for the oppressed.”
The delegates reaffirmed their determination to continue and intensify their aid to the American Jewish agencies of reconstruction and development. They also expressed their appreciation to the President and Congress for American economic assistance to Israel. “We urge the continuation and extension of such aid, which effectively carries out the policy of strengthening underdeveloped countries and building the defense of the free world,” the resolution stated.
CALL FOR PEACE IN MIDDLE EAST; URGE IMPROVED U.S. IMMIGRATION LAWS
Restating the urgency for peace in the Middle East, the delegates called upon the nations of the world through the United Nations to help achieve a just and lasting peace in that crucial part of the world. The achievement of this objective will be of momentous value to the peoples of that area and is of utmost urgency to all mankind.
In a resolution on immigration, the delegates noted revision in September 1957, of immigration restrictions to refugee escapees from Eastern Europe. The resolution noted that in signing the revised law President Eisenhower again expressed regrets that major revisions “of our basic immigration and nationality laws had not been made–revisions on which he and leaders of both major parties had long agreed.” The resolution commended the President and Congress and urged them to hold hearings on further revision of the law.
Irving Kane, one of the principal leaders of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, addressing the delegates on civil rights, said that the historical and cultural traditions of Judaism were closely linked with “de locratic equalitarianism and individual liberties.” Citing tensions over integration of the public schools and the general issues of equality of human rights for all minorities, he declared that the issue was not a regional one but a world one.
Racial segregation and discrimination, Mr. Kane said, “is an imperfection in our democracy, “and none of us can justly demand that the South take on a responsibility that the rest of us avoid. The responsibility, ” he went on, “is that of the entire nation–the government, the voluntary agencies, the people–working together, through effective instruments which can and must be created, ” and in all of which efforts the Jewish community must participate.
FRIEDMAN, SOBEL OFF ADDRESS ASSEMBLY ON THEIR FINDINGS IN ISRAEL
Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, executive vice chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, Isidore Sobel off; executive vice president of Detroit’s Jewish Welfare Federations, and Ernest Stock, consultant on overseas studies to the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, addressed the Assembly on the economic and welfare situation in Israel which they studied during recent visits there.
Rabbi Friedman told the delegates that in view of Israel’s great and continuing needs, a recent UJA study mission to that country consisting of 100 Jewish leaders had decided to recommend “once again a special fund over and above the goal of the regular campaign.” The UJA in 1956 and 1957 asked the community welfare funds to conduct such emergency drives. Rabbi Friedman reported that UJA funds allocated by local Jewish federations and welfare funds had helped 102, 000 people to resettle during the period from October 1956 to October 1957. Of this total 82, 000 went to Israel and the balance to other lands including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Latin America and Western Europe.
Mr. Sobeloff declared that the task of the American Jewish communities in providing the necessary increased assistance to Israel demands “complete dedication and sound campaign planning.” He urged the delegates to select their top leadership immediately, and recruit adequate groups of campaign workers, Mr. Stock warned that if immigration to Israel continues at the present rate, American aid must not only continue at the present scale but must be increased in order to keep the immigrant backlog from becoming unmanageable. But if immigration should decline, he stated, then foreign aid must continue for some years to come if the current backlog is to be reduced and ultimately eliminated.
Herbert R. Abeles of Newark was reelected president of the Council of Jewish Federation and Welfare Funds. Other officers elected were: vice presidents–Mrs. Jesse Asno:, New York Arthur Gelber, Toronto; Eli H. Levenson. San Diego; I.S. Lowenberg, Chicago Barney Medintz. Atlanta; William Rosenwald, New York; Judge Saul Seidman, Hartsord and Michael A. Stavitsky of Newark, Also, treasurer, Edwin Rosenberg, New York secretary, Sol Satinsky, Philadelphia; executive director, Philip Bernstein New York Delegates at the closing session also adopted a budget of $549, 329.
A banquet was marked by the presentation of the fifth annual William J. Shroder Memorial Awards. The awards went to the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland for us leadership training program and to the Jewish Hospital Association of Cincinnati for its child guidance home. The Edwin Rosenberg Award established by the Ben ad Berne Toaster Foundation “for leadership in Jewish communal service” was presented to Syivan J. Lisberger of San Francisco for his leadership in guiding the merger of the Jewish Welfare Fund and the Federation of Jewish Charities, San Francisco’s two major central Jewish organizations, into the Jewish Welfare Federation of San Francisco, Marin County and the Peninsula.
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.
