6
DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle
COUNCIL
Season's Greetings
(Continued from Page One)
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memorandum setting forth the
history of the General Jewish
Council in the three years since
it was formed on June 13, 1938,
by the American Jewish Com-
mittee, the American Jewish
Congress, the Bnai Brith and the
Jewish Labor Committee. The
memorandum revealed the con-
sistent failure of the Council to
make any progress to achieve
the purposes for which it was
formed. Specifically, the Amer-
ican Jewish Congress affirmed:
Charges Against Council
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"1. That the Council has not
achieved a coordination of the
activities of its member agencies,
and that its member agencies
have not seriously desired such
coordination.
"2. That the Council has at
no time undertaken to formulate
plans for cooperative action, and
that it has never seriously ad-
dressed itself to that task.
"3. That the Council has done
nothing to organize or to coor-
dinate the defense work of the
local communal organizations but
that, on the contrary, when it
had an opportunity to do this it
categorically refused to assume
any direct responsibility for this
work which is support for a na-
tional defense of Jewish rights.
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A well-known manager of a real estate firm
died recently in Detroit at age 60. Eight
years previously he had taken out two $5000
Ordinary Life policies with the Great-West
Life and the proceeds of these policies are now
providing his widow with a monthly income
of $100 until the funds are exhausted.
SEYMOUR J. COHN
1512 Union Guardian Building
Telephone — Randolph 0446
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BEST WISHES TO ALL OUR
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FOR A HAPPY PESACH . . .
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"4. That the Council, by its
failure to become a policy-mak-
ing body, and by failing to guide
the local communities in their
defense work, has added con-
fusion to the work of defense in
many of the communities.
"5. That the Council, unwill-
ing to assume control over the
defense situation has been the
cause for the development of a
highly stimulated competition in
the work of defense on the part
of its own member agencies on
a scale never before witnessed
in the United States."
Program Nullified
Further the Congress charged
that the action of the American
Jewish Committee and the Bnai
Brith on March 19, 1941, in
reaching an agreement between
themselves without the knowl-
edge or consent to the General
Jewish Council, for joint fund-
raisinfi and coordination of ac-
tivities and excluding from such
an agreement the American Jew-
ish Congress and the Jewish
Labor Committee, was the cul-
minating event in a whole series,
resulting in the nullification of
the purposes of the General Jew-
ish Council.
The memorandum of the
American Jewish Council was
presented by Louis Lipsky, chair-
man of its governing council.
The announcement of the with-
drawal of the delegation of the
American Jewish Congress was
made by Dr. Wise, president of
the American Jewish Congress.
The withdrawal of the Congress
delegation followed the defeat by
a vote of 13 to 7 of a motion
submitted by Prof. Jerome Mich-
ael, asking the General Jewish
Council as a whole to recognize
that it had ceased to exist except
in name and, therefore, officially
to dissolve itself. Two members
of the Bnai Brith delegation
voted with the American Jewish
Congress delegation of five in
support of this motion. The
resolution was defeated despite
an agreement by spokesmen of
the four groups that the Gen-
eral Jewish Council had been
inactive.
In the resolution submitted by
Prof. Michael it was pointed out
that the continued existence of
the General Jewish Council in its
present status of inactivity may
be an "obstacle in the way of
serious and sincere efforts to
coordinate activities to defend
and protect the Jewish commun-
ity at home and abroad".
The Council's Record
Except for the first few months
after its formation in 1938, the
General Jewish Council has un-
dertaken no activities and has
been preoccupied with discussions
of formulas for joint fund rais-
ing in which the four agencies
would join ; such formula being
regarded by all the partners in
the General Jewish Council as
a prerequisite to coordination of
activities. No such formula has
been found, the American Jew-
ish Congress stated, despite pro-
posals and debates which began
in September of 1939 and con-
cluded in November of 1940. The
chief obstacle to agreement was
the refusal of the American Jew-
ish Committee, which was less
concerned with the wishes of
the Jewish community of the
United States than with the sat-
isfaction of the prejudices of
some 500 large contributors who
were opposed to a joint fund
raising campaign of the four
agencies.
The record of the General
Jewish Council from September
1939 to March 1941, states the
American Jewish Congress, re-
veals:
1. That every proposal for
effective coordination of activi-
ties and joint fund raising was
rejected.
2. That the member agencies
were involved in a debate on
how substitutes might be found
for the General Jewish Council
through the creation of a dic-
tatorship of ten individuals for
whom the powers of the Council
were to be turned over a period
of three years.
3. During the entire period
since the outbreak of the war,
when Jewish life "suffered a
deterioration not paralleled in its
history", the General Jewish
Council has "never discussed any
of the Jewish questions arising
out of the war; took no decisions;
issued no statement; was alive
neither to the Jewish tragedy in
Europe nor to the mounting Jew-
ish problems in the Western
Hemisphere."
4. The only record of "action"
by the General Jewish Council
during this period was (a) to
censure the American Jewish
Congress for calling a meeting
at Madison Square Garden on
Dec. 13, 1939, to protest against
Nazi brutalities in Poland and
to veto a non-sectarian meeting
arranged by the Congress Nov.
13, 1940, to protest the Vichy
decrees against the Jews and
(c) on Dec. 23, 1940, to enjoin
the American Jewish Congress
from organizing a Jewish Sec-
tion in support of the British
War Relief Society. At no time,
according to the American Jew-
ish Congress, was the American
Jewish Committee serious in its
attitude toward the General Jew-
ish Council. It recalled that soon
after the General Jewish Council
was formed, the American Jew-
ish Committee embarked on a
campaign to increase the budget
from 1400,000 to a million and
a half in expansion of its pro-
gram. At no time was the Gen-
eral Jewish Council consulted or
informed in advance of this un-
dertaking.
At the same time the American
Jewish Committee was the only
agency which refused to ratify
an agreement initialed by its
president as well as the presi-
dent of the other agencies, and
subsequently formally approved
by the executive boards of 3
agencies, as recently as Novem-
ber 18, 1940, which would have
given the General Jewish Council
the right to coordinate the ac-
tivities in the field of defense
and to conduct joint fund-raising
for all four agencies.
Many efforts, it was pointed
out, were made by the American
Jewish Congress to secure recog-
nition by the Council of neces-
sity of assuming the large respon-
sibilities which were developing
and with regard to which the
Jews of America were looking
to it for action. It recalled that
a simple fourfold program sub-
mitted by it on Oct. 1, 1939, was
defeated on January the 18th,
1940 after months of debate,
first because the American Jew-
ish Committee was opposed to a
four-way joint fund-raising cam-
paign and second, because the
Jewish Labor Committee refused
to permit the enlargement of the
Council if it meant yielding any
portion of its 25 per cent repre-
sentation therein.
Congress Proposals
The proposal of the American
Jewish Congress, as submitted by
it on Oct. 1, 1939, had the fol-
lowing provisions:
1. The constituent agencies of
the General Jewish Council were
called upon to act in all their
defense activities as agencies of
the General Jewish Council and
under the direction and super-
vision.
2. The consolidation of funds
and fund-raising activities was to
be undertaken.
3. Local councils were to be
established throughout the coun-
try and affiliated with and placed
under the direction of the Gen-
eral Jewish Council.
4. Membership in the General
Jewish Council was to be en-
larged to include representatives
of the three rabbinical organiza-
tions, two members of women's
orffanizations, and one represen-
tative of the Council of Jewish
Federations and Welfare Funds.
April 11, 1941
prized autonomy and their inde-
pendence of action."
Concluding, the momorandum
asserts that "the record estab-
lishes the fact that by acts of
commission and ornisison, more
specifically, on the part of the
Committee and the Bnai Brith,
the purposes of the Pittsburgh
agreement have been nullified
and the General Jewish Council
has been liquidated.
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2615 CALVERT AVE.
it
TO. 8-9022
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426 CASS AVENUE
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Passover Greetings to All
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•
Season's Greetings
DOCTORS AND
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Action Immobilized
"This painful story," says the
memorandum," reached a sur-
prising climax in the action an-
nounced by the presidents of the
Bnai Brith and the American
Jewish Committee on March 19,
1941. The life of the Council has
been held together by a slender
thread. It was the hope of many
of us that the grief and tragedy
of Jewish life would eventually
break through the rigid forms of
Jewish organizational develop-
ment and overcome prejudices
and misunderstandings. It was
our hope that the General Jew-
ish Council some day would wak-
en and undertake a functional
life. In our judgment the action
of the Bnai Brith and the Amer-
ican Jewish Committee has
broken that thread of hope. It
has effectively closed the door
leading to union and coopera-
tion which was opened at Pitts-
burgh in June, 1938."
"The General Jewish Council
is an organization that could do
more service for the Jewish
cause," the Congress asserted,
"but its action is immobilized
and will forever be immobilized
by the refusal of those respons-
ible for its existence to sacrifice
even to a minimum degree their
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•
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