More than two thousand men and women representing industry, the professions and philanthropy gathered at a dinner Sunday night in the Hotel Commodore to pay honor to the five successive president of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies, Felix M. Warburg, the Federation’s first president, Arthur Lehman, Joseph L. Buttenwieser, Sol M. Stroock and Dudley D. Sicher, president incumbent, and to launch a campaign for fifty thousand new members. Frederick Brown, philanthropist, real estate operator, chairman of two previous Federation campaigns and president of the Hospital for Joint Diseases, was chairman of the Citizens’ Committee sponsoring the dinner in honor of the Federation leaders.
In the principal address of the evening, on the subject of world peace, David Sarnoff, executive vice-president of the Radio Corporation of America, declared, “There can be no appreciation by the individual of the implication of world peace until, in his relationships with his immediate neighbor, he has learned the lesson of neighborliness and social justice. There can be no real love of mankind,-and philanthropy is exactly that,-unless we here in our community through great organizations like the Federation and similar agencies of other faiths promote successfully the program of charity in its true sense.”
Toastmaster Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York and president of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, presented Dudley D. Sicher, the incumbent president of the Federation. “We are informed,” Mr. Sicher said, “that there are in this city at least 50,000 more Jewish homes of comfort, and in many cases homes of luxury, in which there is not a single supporter of the Federation. These 50,000 non-givers represent the Federation’s deficit this year, a deficit far greater than can be expressed in terms of money.”
Joined with the local speakers, leaders of Jewish philanthropy from four different cities helped launch the campaign, speaking via radio circuits wired to the grand ballroom of the Hotel Commodore. The addresses were broadcast.
Radio speakers were Louis E. Kirstein, former President of the Boston Federated Jewish Charities; William J. Shroder, former President of the Cincinnati Council of Jewish Agencies; Judge Horace Stern, former President of the Philadelphia Jewish Charities, and Alfred A. Foreman, President of the Chicago Federation of Jewish Charities, all of whom paid tribute to the work of the five guests of honor, and congratulated the Federation on its aim of “a member in every Jewish home.”
Short congratulatory addresses were delivered by Lieut. Gov. Lehman, and Mrs. Sidney C. Borg, chairman of the Women’s Division of the Federation.
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.
