Planning for the future programs of the National Jewish Welfare Board and affiliated Jewish centers will be affected by a number of changes in the current American scene, Sanford Sollender, national executive vice-president of the JWB, cautioned here today.
Mr. Sollender addressed the 47th annual meeting of the Metropolitan section of the NJWB which, today, concluded its three days of sessions, with 200 delegates in attendance, representing YMHA’s, YWHA’s and community centers in the area. The executive head of the JWB listed the following factors which must affect future planning:
The growing proportion of older people in the United States as well as the increase in the number of young adults; the “unbelievable mobility” of the American people the continued shortening of the work week, with consequent greater time for leisure-time activities; the persistence of the cold war and the “nagging threat” of nuclear warfare; and the new desire of American Jews “to gain richer understanding of their heritage and achieve a deeper sense of identification with their traditions.”
Another speaker at the convention, Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, secretary of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, warned the delegates that the intellectual quality of Jewish life is “the weakest aspect of present-day society.” The Jewish community centers, he said, “can nourish and refresh every other phase of Jewish life, including the rituals of synagogues.”
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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.
