The Joint Distribution Committee adopted a $23,112,000 budget at its 56th annual meeting here today to help 300,000 needy Jews in 25 countries during 1971. The budget was presented to 200 Jewish community leaders from the United States and Canada by JDC director general Louis D. Horwitz who said the sum was the minimum required to finance the relief agency’s broad range of health, welfare and reconstruction programs all over the world. Samuel L. Haber, JDC executive vice chairman, reported that JDC spent $23,350,000 to aid 315,000 Jews during 1970. He said that since 1945, JDC spent nearly $800 million in rescue, relief and reconstruction activities. The JDC is a major beneficiary of the United Jewish Appeal. Mr. Horwitz termed 1970 “a turning point in the JDC programs, especially in Israel where the JDC had to readjust its machinery to deal with the social problems posed by the aged and handicapped for which the hard pressed State of Israel has few resources of funds and manpower.” He said one of the most constructive developments there was the inauguration of modern health and welfare programs for all who need them rather than only for new immigrants whom the JDC has been helping all along. He cited as one example a new community center and home for the aged at Afula, the first of three such facilities which the JDC is helping to establish.
Mr. Haber said JDC activities in 1970 were concentrated in Israel, North Africa, Iran and Eastern and Western Europe. He said Israel absorbed 35 percent of last year’s expenditures which aided 95,000 Jews there. North Africa and Iran together accounted for nearly a fifth of the budget which went to aid 47,000 Jews, mostly children and young people. Mr. Haber said the JDC spent a third of its fund aiding 95,000 Jews in Eastern Europe and 65,000 needy Jews in Western Europe. In the latter countries, he said, cost of the expenditures were for care and maintenance of transmigrates while they waited for their emigration papers to come through. He said that “at the beginning of the year, the transmigrate caseload was about 2000 persons” but “with the slower exodus from Poland, the caseload shrank to approximately 500 persons.” He warned that there was always the possibility of a sudden spurt and the JDC must be ready to receive new waves of refugees. JDC chairman Louis Broido said there was a great deal of voluntary activity in unmet health and welfare needs in Israel. “This is a very welcome development but sometimes a little overwhelming,” he said. “When we came to Israel we were besieged on all sides by voluntary groups for financial assistance for all kinds of welfare services.”
Max A. Braude, director general of ORT (Organization for Rehabilitation Through Training) reported at the meeting that more than 60,000 students are enrolled in nearly 700 ORT vocational training units in 24 countries. He said that ORT schools are oriented mainly to young people and offer training in 91 vocational fields depending on the manpower needs and opportunities for Jews in different countries. Mr. Braude said that while ORT programs play an important role in North Africa, Iran, India, Latin America, France and other countries, it is in Israel that “ORT is the heart of the country’s vocational education and the prime source for the development of manpower resources.” He reported that ORT has doubled its youth enrollment in its 72 vocational high schools in Israel during the last four years, and plans to “treble” it in the next few years. Mr. Broido was re-elected JDC chairman for a sixth one-year term. Jack D. Weiler was re-elected chairman. Also elected vice-chairmen for the first time were Edward Ginsberg and Irving Kane, of Cleveland and Herbert M. Singer, of New York.
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.
