age Two

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, December 1 1, 1942

JDC Spends $7,250,000 for Relief

795,000 Refugees Received
Aid During the Past Year

War Time Urgency Advances
D
Date
of Welfare Assembly

0

Report Submitted at 28th Annual Meeting in New York;
Post-War Reconstruction Program Already Under
*Way; Warburg Re-elected Chairman

Committee's work because of his
Army duties. James N. Rosen-
berg of New York was continued
as honorary chairman of the ex-
ecutive committee and Mr. Beck-
er as chairman of the National
Council.
Paul Baerwald, honorary chair-
man of the J.D.C., pointing to the
problems of post-war reconstruc-
tion, declared that the J.D.C. al-
ready was planning for the peace
to come.
' Peace for .Whole World
"All of us join in the fervent
hope that, with the victory of the
United Nations, a new meaning
will result for the word, 'peace,'
for all the peoples of the world,
whatever their nationality, race
or religion," he said. "For the
J.D.C. this is more than a hope,
for we are already thinking and
planning and preparing for that
day."
$18,053,000 Spent by U.J.A.
A total of $18,053,000 has been
spent during the last 12 months
by the Joint Distribution Corn-
mittee, United Palestine Appeal
and National Refugee Service,
the constituent agencies of the
United Jewish Appeal, for large-
scale war relief and rehabilita,
tion overseas; Palestine recon-
struction and defense and aid
to refugees in the United States.
Since Pearl Harbor some 3,200
communites have conducted cam-
paigns on behalf of the United
Jewish Appeal for Refugees, Ov-
erseas Needs and Palestine.
Detroit's share in the funds
of the United Jewish Appeal is
secured through the Allied Jew-
ish Campaign of the Jewish Wel-
fare Federation, which is includ-
ed for the coming year in the
War Chest.

As the major American agency for aid to Jews over-
seas, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,
Inc., appropriated $7,250,000 for the calendar year 1942
to provide relief, emigration assistance, educational and
reconstructive aid to 795,000 persons, James H. Becker of
Chicago, chairman reported at the National Council, re-
ported last Friday at the 28th

annual meeting of the organiza-
tion's national council, held at Polish government-in-exile in a
its offices, 100 E. 42nd St., New non-sectarian program on behalf
of 2,000,000 Polish nationals, of
York.
whom approximately 600,000 are
In actual cash, Mr. Becker said, Jews, who are scattered from the
the Joint Distribution Committee Arctic Circle to the Chinese,
has thus far spent $5,448,000, Indian and Persian borders.
"mostly under U. S. Treasury
In Palestine itself, Mr. Becker
licenses where there were neces-
said, the J.D.C. during the sum-
sary."
Reviewing the activities of the mer made a special appropria-
J.D.C. during the year, Mr. Beck- tion of $200,000 for extraordinary
er said that 7,790 persons were war relief purposes there. This
helped to escape from Europe grant was made, he said, at the
to the Western Hemisphere and request of the Jewish Agency
Palestine, and that despite war and other Zionist bodies, and was
over and above grants customari-
and the disruptions of war, the
agency maintained, and in some ly made for cultural-religious
cases intensified, its work in purposes and for transportation
Western Europe, Latin America, of refugees to Palestine.
Officers Re-Elected
North Africa, Palestine, Turkey,
Persia and on behalf of the Pol-
With the exception of former
ish refugees in Asiatic Russia.
Gov. Herbert H. Lehman, who
Mr. Becker revealed that more resigned as vice-chairman of the
than 6,000. refugees fled from. J.D.C. when he was appointed
France to Switzerland and sev- director of Foreign Relief and
eral thousand more into Spain. Rehabilitation, the present. offi-
This, he said, necessitated sub- cers of the JDC were re-elected
stantial monthly increases for Mr. Lehman's 'association with
emergency aid on the part of the the J.D.C. dates back to 1916.
J.D.C., in addition to the regular Mrs. Felix M. Warburg and
program of caring for those refu- Paul Saerwald were named as
gees in these two countries.
honorary chairmen and Lieut.
-
Non-Sectarian Program
Edward M. M. Warburg was re-
In Asiatic Russia, he said, the elected chairman, although he
J.D.C. is cooperating with the can take no active part in the

General Council Meeting at Cleveland, Jan. 16-18, Will
Consist of Working Sessions Only; Local, National,
Overseas Problems to be Discussed

With local Jewish federations and welfare funds con-
fronted by increasing war-time problems, the Council of
Jewish Federations' and Welfare Funds will hold its 10th
annual General Assembly at the Hotel Statler in CleVe-
land, Jan. 16 to 18, it was 'announced this week by Sidney
Hollander of Baltimore, president of the Council. Usually

scheduled for early February,
the General Assembly has been
advanced two weeks because of
the urgency of current issues.
The 1943 General Assembly—
the second conducted by the
Council in war-time—will con-
sist of working sessions only,
with attendance limited to a cred-
ited delegates from the Council's
224 member agencies in 187
cities.
James Marshall of New York,
chairman of the Assembly pro-

0

gram committee, expressed the
belief that the policy of working
sessions only—initiated at the
1942 Assembly in ChicagO' short-
ly after Pearl Harbor—will per-
mit ' a more thorough discussion
of new war-time developments
affecting local Jewish federa-
tions and welfare funds. National
and overseas agencies supported
by welfare funds will designate
representatives to attend the As-
sembly as consultants.

,

How Palestine Jews Are Aiding
United Nations War Effort

•

Figures compiled by the United PaleStine Appeal -show
that 47,000 Jews are now serving in the combatant forces of
Great - Britain in the Middle and Near East. Of this number
17,000 are serving in the British Army as of Aug. 31; 25,000
have enlisted in the Home Guard and military police units,
according to a statement made on Oct..17 by Under-Secretary
McMillan of the Colonial Office, and 5,000 are serving in the
Tel Aviv Home Guard.

These figures are exclusive of the 100,000 Pales,tinian Jews
who are serving in the war effort. There are 63,000 Jewish
civilian employees in the British Army; 17,000 volunteers
trained by the Jewish Agency in the 'Palestine Voluntary
Force for protection against air and gas attacks; 25,000 to 35,-
000 industrial workers engaged in fulfilling military orders.
A large percentage cf the products of the Jewish farms, with
an agricultural population of 70,000 Jewish workers, goes to
the British Army.

Palestine Movement Gains on 2 Fronts

Jews, Non-Jews Bolster Plan
In Behalf of National Home

246 Members of Both Houses of Congress Sign Appeal to
Roosevelt; UPA. Demands Opening of Gates to All,
Self-rule, Jewish Army, Aid to, Refugees

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

NEW YORK.—Palestine's reconstruction work
gained momentum this week on two fronts—from the
ranks of non-Jews who addressed a strong plea to Presi-
dent Roosevelt to assure America's support of the move-
ment for the upbuilding of the Jewish national Home, and
through the United Palestine Appeal's annual conference

held . here on Sunday.
0
Marking the observance of the the "self-governing Jewish com-
25th anniversary of the issuance monwealth" in Palestine.
of the Balfour Declaration, the
The four points in the declara-
appeal, addressed to the Presi-
dent, formulated through the in- tion adopted by the U.P.A. con-
itative of the American Palestine ference ask: (1) That the gates
Committee, carries the signatures of Palestine be opened to all who
may desire to settle there and
of 62 United States Senators and
184 Members of the U. S. House that the MacDonald White Paper
of Representatives, including be abrogated. (2) That steps be
Senators Vandenberg and Brown taken to facilitate the settlement
in Palestine of refugees in North
and Congressmen John D. Din-
Africa, Russia and Iran. (3) That
gell, Frank E. Hook, Roy 0.
a Jewish military force • be or-
Woodruff, Albert J. Engel, Bartel
ganized in Palestine to fight
J. Jonkman, William W. Black-
under its own flag alongside the
ney and Rudolph G. Tenerowicz
armies of the United Nations. (4)
of Michigan.
"That the aims embodied in the
Dr. Weizmann Is Keynoter
Balfour Declaration be actualized
The impressive United Pales-
by the establishment of Palestine
tine Appeal gathering in the
as a self-governing Common-
Biltmore Hotel, which Dr. Chaim
welath—free and equal among
Weizmann made his first appear-
the nations of the earth."
ance since his recent illness, pre-
Joel Gross of Newark, N. J.,
sented to the United Nations,
through President Roosevelt a presented the resolutions.
Whole Country Represented
four-point program calling for
the liberation of the Jews of Under the chairmanship of Dr.
Europe and the establishment of Israel Goldstein, national co-

.

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chairman of the United Palestine
Appeal, the U.P.A. sessions were
attended by members of the Na-
tional Council for Palestine from
every section of the land. Speak-
ers on the afternoon program in-
cluded Sylvan Gotshal, executive
chairman of the Greater New
York U.P.A.; Charles J. Rosen-
bloom, national treasurer; Martin
Argonsky, well known war cor-
respondent and radio commenta-
tor; Pierre Van Paassen, noted
author; Judge Bernard A. Rosen-
blatt, chairman of the board of
the Keren Hayesod; Lieut. Mat-
thew Huttner of the U.S. Army
Air Corps; Dr. Stephen S. Wise
and Rabbi Irving Miller, of the
executive committee of the New
York U.P.A.

Dr. Weizmann and Secretary of
the Interior Harold Ickes were
the princip41 speakers at the
banquet, which was addressed
also by Judge Morris Rother-
berg, who presided; Louis Lip-
sky, Judge. Louis E. Levinthal,
president of the Zionist . Organ-
iaztions of America, and Nathan
Straus, honorary chairman of the
U.P.A. _

How Funds Were Spent
Mr. Rosenbloom reported that
the national " funds received
through the U.P.A. amounted to
$8,969,038 during the fiscal year
ending Oct. 1. He described the
percentage of expenditures as fol-
lows: 34 per cent agricultural
settlement, 23 per cent, internal

security; 12 per cent, vocational
training, housing and social ser-
vice; 9 per cent, advancement of
trade and industry; 9 per cent,
reduction, of previous commit-
ments; 4 per cent, education and
culture; 5 per 'cent, administra-
tion; 3 per cent, immigration and
agricultural training, and 1 per
cent, subventions for religious
work. •
Describing Jewish contribu-
tions to vital war efforts in sup-
port of the United Nations, Mr.
Rosenbloom stated that Palestine
produced $4,000,000 worth of
military goods in the first year
of the war and that the figure
has increased to $40,000,000 at
the present time.
Writer Tells of Horrors
Mr. Agronsky described his
five years' service on many bat-
tlefronts and related his first ex-
perience during the Arab attacks
on Jewish settlements in Pales-
tine in 1937. He told the grue-
some story of the brutal murder
of five Young Jews by a band of
Arab terrorists at Kiryath Ana-
vim and of the funeral services
at which the father of the young-
est victims said briefly: "May
the body of my son and his
friends rest here in the soil of the
Holy Land, in peace. May their
blood, and their flesh, and their
bones, make more fertile this
land." Emphasizing that there
was no mention of vengeance
even in an instance of ruthless
murder, Mr. Agronsky declared,
"For me, it was a lesson in the
indestructability of the human
spirit that I think no Fascist
could ever realize."
Pointing to the tragic position
of the Jews in Europe, _ Mr.
Agronsky stated that Palestine is
the one land to which the home-
less Jews look for refugee after
the war.

Home for Jewish Spirit
In his addess to the conference,
Mr. Rothenberg stated that
Zionists conceived the establish-
ment of the Jewish National
Home in Palestine not merely
as. a place of refugee, but also
"as a home for the Jewish spirit
where Jewish creative ca - acity
might again find expression and
make its collective contribution
to the storehouse of civilization."
Dr. Goldstein declared that "in
the name of those nameless' mil-
lions of Jews who have fallen
victims to the Nazi campaign of
mass murder, we must -resolve
here that those who survive this
terrible holocaust shall not be
homeless wanderers." Dr. Gold-
stein pointed out in his address
that 10 per cent of the Jews in
Palestine volunteered for mili-
tary service, this percentage
being equal to the selective ser-
vice plan in this country.
Pledge U.S. Support
The . statement presented to
President Roosevelt by the 246
members of both Houses of the
U.S. Congress in 'behalf of a re-
established Jewish Common-
wealth in Palestine declares that
"Our Government may be assur-
ed that in continuing the tradi-
tional American policy in favor
of so just a cause, it can rely
upon our individual support and
the approbation of the American
people."
The petition further declares
that "the reasons which, 25 years
ago, led the American people and
the government of the United
States to favor the cause of Jew-
ish national restoration in Pales-
tine, are still valid today. In fact,
the case for a Jewish homeland
is overwhelmingly stronger and,.
the need more urgent now than

(Continued on Page 17).