Friday, March 31, 1944

THE JEWISH. NEWS

Page Sixteen

Guiding Principles for Tomorrow

By ABRAHAM SRERE

A Program for Total Community Planning
In the Post-War World

President, Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit

be worth watching them in the days.
ahead, for eventually we may have to face the issue
and make a decision.

wind. It will

The following is the text of the report submitted
by Mr. Srere at the 17th annual meeting of the
Jewish Welfare Federation and several constituent
agencies, held at the Jewish Community Center
• on March 26.

T

Throughout the country there is evidence that Jew-
ish communities are thinking about the objectives and
forms of their central organizations. Agencies which
were created 20 -or 30 years ago, are being re-evaluated •
in terms of the changes which have taken place in
communities, and in the needs which Jewish com-
munity organizations are called upon to meet.

RADITIONALLY, the president's annual
report has been devoted to a review of the plans and
activities of Federation during the preceding year.
Tonight I should like to address myself instead to a
consideration . of the problems and plans with which
we will have to deal in the years ahead. The days of
peace which will follow the war will bring to every
American community tremendous problems of human
adjustment and readjustment. We must begin how to
develop plans which will make possible the kind of
life we want to live; the opportunities we wish to enjoy,
and the services which we, as a community, should be
ready to provide for our people.

,

Rise of New Demands
In Detroit, we reorganized our community social
welfare structure in 1926, with the establishment of ;
Federation as the successor to the United Jewish
Charities. Our plan was. based on a community study
which • was made in 1923: At that time the' Detroit
Jewish population was estimated at 40,000. We now
have more . than doubled our population. Our corn- •
munity has grown; problems have multiplied. The inter-
vening 20 years have brought many new demands and
Deeds. We have established new agencies and services
to meet these needs. We have- re-organized. expanded
and merged some of our older services. We are now •
arriving at the stage of community development when .
we shall have to study again our entire community
social welfare structure. We shall have to determine
whether our existing ,agencies are so constituted and
developed that they can adequately meet the demands;
of the times. Have some of them outlived their useful-
ness? Are there any areas- of need which the community
has. not met? Do we need any new services?. Should
some of our existing agencies be rehrganized • ana their
programs redirected or changed?' In short, are we
spending our community dollars wisely and economi-
cally? Are we meeting the social welfare needs of the
Detroit of 1944?

The problems and prospects of the Jewish corn-%
munity in the postwar world cannot be divorced from
the general American scene and postwar portents. Our
plans will be affected by and must be definitely related
to the general conditions and broad planning programs
of our nation. Much of the discussion of postwar pran-
ning centers about the idea of economic security. Eco-
nomic security, however, aims to provide only the
minimum basis of life—the floor of the economic life
of the community, below which no one should be al-
lowed to fall. Above this floor we must plan to build
a sound, foresighted structure of adequate and enrich-
ing community life.

Government and the people must work together
to fashion the • institutions of our postwar com-
munity. It will be the task of public and private,
sectarian and non-sectarian agencies, the general
Community and the Jewish community, to mold our
institutions and services for the benefit of all.
Voluntary social agencies will have an important
- role to play in this undertaking.

ABRAHAM SRERE .

We in the Jewish community have organized and
maintained a social welfare structure aimed at aiding
the needy, the maladjusted, the aged and the sick in
our own midst; providing relief for our distressed
people all over the world, and strengthening the hand
and heart of those who are building a new Jewish life
in Palestine.

Meeting, Family Needs
•
Facing us now are many problems which call for
communal thinking and planning—problems which gain
in importance as the day of victory nears.

The core of our community life is the family. Our
'services must be fashioned to meet family needs. There
is a growing awareness in the community of the useful-
ness of case work services in dealing with family
problems, as is evident from the increased calls. for
- this service by nurseries, Selective Service System, in-
. dustrial counsellors, labor unions and schools. There
is an effort to extend case work services on a fee basis
to those people who can afford to pay and who wish
to use the service only if they can pay.

The Postwar Problem
- Men and women Ireturning to civilian life fram the
armed forces will seek employment and an oppOrtunity
for the happy and useful-pursuits of peace. They may
have to be retrained for new occupations due to service-
connected disabilities. They , may prefer . to select new
- trades or vocations. These ex-servicemen and women
will require vocational guidance, training and rehabili-
tation. Those who have left the service suffering some
ailment Will be in need of medical attention, There
will be many baffling personal and family problems
which will arise in the transition from military to
civilian life. There will be a need for the vocational
rehabilitation of civilians who will be displaced by
reconversion—the problem of the youth who should
return to school, of the marginal worker who will have.
_difficulty in getting a job in the peacetime labor market,
- of the over-age worker who may be the first to be
dropped. Our agencies in the fields of family case
work, health and vocational guidance will have to be
ready to meet these needs and to provide these services.

The Cultural Needs
.
There will be problems which will have to be faced
by leisure-time and cultural agencies. Programs will
have to be adjusted and expanded to provide for the-
increased leisure time of both the older and younger
men and women who will be sloughed off the labor
force. There will be the special problem of group ad-
justment' of the returning servicemen. Our normal
functions of leisure-time activities will have to be
' broadened to assist the disabled veterans to adjust
themselves so that they may - feel at home in the
community ...scene.

,

•

•

Care of Aged, Chronic III
•
The care of the aged and chroriic ill will become an
- increasing concern of the Jewish community in the
days ahead. Today we have more old people than ever
before. We have nine,
people in this country
over sixty-five years o age, and each year, due to the
aging of our population, the number will increase. We
- have come to realize that the increasing number of old
people in our midst represents a _problem: We must
develop a keener appreciation that advancing years do
not create in all persons a similar state of mind, or the
the same physical infirmities. We shall have to think
more in terms of specialized services for the aged
person, such as •boarding home Plans, nursing and
convalescent services, institutional facilities for the
chronically-ill, leisure-time activities,: case work Serv-
ices to deal with Some of the problems of old age, such
as mental ailments, fear and insecurity, financial worry
and loneliness.

,

Problem of Education
Federations, here and elsewhere, increasingly have

atecepted respork.sibility for the promotion of formal

Jewish education and other cultural endeavors. But the
acceptance of communal. responsibility for Jewish edu-
cation has not been _extended to the formulation of
guiding principles for determining the nature and extent
of central community - responsibility for such activities.
While we recognize the diversity of various Jewish
cultural endeavors, we are still faced with the problem
of developing criteria for determining which Jewish
cultural programs can be accepted as the common con-
cern and responsibility of the entire community, and
what should be the scope and character of such
activities.

In the days ahead we must answer for ourselves
how far Federation should go in the field of Jewish .
education. Should Federation be content with a .
mere provision of funds to the various educational
agencies; or, should it take a more active role in
community planning for Jewish education? We are
at the point where we should start thinking in
terms of creating a central community educational
agency which would concern itself \vith community
planning in the field of Jewish education, such as
. coordination and consolidation of school systems,
setting of standards, experimentation with new
curricula and new types of schools, and promoting
an interest in Jewish education among those
families whose children are now- outside the walls,
of our educational agencies.

Because of the dominance of war-related causes in
fund-raising in American communities, and because of
the mushroom growth of a variety of war-relief ap-
peals,, It was but natural to see the birth of the war
chest movement. A number of Jewish communities—
large and small—became partners in local war chests,
as a result of developments within these communities,
and tecause the war .chests, by and large, specifically
invited the Jewish communities to join in—as was our
experience in Detroit.

The Future of the War Chest
Naturally, most of us look at the war chest as a -
wartime mechanism, the same as OPA, WPB, and
numerous other devices which have been developed
and applied, in order to speed the war effort and - to
bring victory and peace that much nearer. Nevertheless,
we are all realistic enough to recognize that when the
war is over, we shall; not go back to our way of life
as it existed in 1939. The war will leave certain per-
manent changes in our economic, industrial and social
life. PerhapS we shall not be too happy over this, but,
nevertheless, we shall have to accept these changes
and start from there... The question logically arises:
"What will happen to the war chest idea when the war
is over?"

Urges Social Survey
We must place the subject of a s6cial survey of the
Jewish 'community of Detroit as a preferred item on
our cormiounity agenda. We shall have to address our-
selves to this subject in the next year or two. We must
all start thinking about it and giving it serious attention
right now.

As a 'community interested in the well-beng of our
own local agencies and in all the worthwhile regional,
national and overseas Jewish social enterprises, we
must develop a sense of perspective, objective analysis
and balance in' giVing. There are all types of demands
made upon us as individuals and as a group; to con-
tribute to the support of various institutions, agencies
and services which are outside the scope of Federation.
Undoubtedly, these' services . and institutions have
worthy aims and objectives, but the disturbing fact is
that many of these agencies receive support which is
out of proportion to their relative worth in the total
community program. The fact that some agencies have
special pleaders and strong partisans should not blind
us to the reality that there must be a sense of propor-
tion in giving to various causes. I know the argument
which is advanced that these contributions do not en-
croach on contributions made to the Allied Jewish
Campaign, or to the War Chest: This may be true in a
few instances, but, by and large, individuals set up
for themselves philanthropic budgets of their own, and
what is given to any one cause is deducted from the
total philanthropic budgets of these individuals, and,
as a net results those agencies—at home and abroad—
supported by -the organized community, suffer to some
extent.

Representative Mechanism
Perhaps the day will soon come when we shall be
able to establish a representative community mechanism
for evaluating the needs and demands of all charitable
enterprises soliciting 'funds in Detroit, and provide the
members of the community with objective guides of
measuring support for each service in relation to the
need of all other services beckoning for the financial
assistance of the community. This, too, should be one
of the subjects to be considered as part 61 a thorough
community survey. We have arrived at a stage of
community development when we can no longer afford
the luxury of thinking only of any one particular
agency and must begin to think • of our agencies in
terms of a total community program.

- Is it too- far-fetched to hazard the guess that the
American people may evince a continuing . desire to
provide assistance even after we lay down our arms;
to help the despoiled, the dispossessed and the homeless
to build their new homes and their new lives out of
the ruins of the old? There is such a possibility. If
such is the case, -will the war chest idea carry over
into our peacetime community life 'and evolve new
forms of community fund-raising, just as the last war
stimulated and accelerated the expansion of the com-
munity. chest idea? We have not had the opportunity
to give much thought to this next stage. But it is
interesting to note that some war chest 'communities
feel that it would be a. good idea to continue joint
fund-raising, even after the war emergency is over.

The Detroit Jewish community has come of age.
We must plan and think accordingly. Our plans and
our actions in the days ahead must reflect the maturity
and responsibility which come with adulthood in com-
munity life, as in individual life., Specious arguments,
fine-spun rationalizations and vested rights, must give
way to a concerted effort for the development of a
central communal agency which will best serve the
community in a democratic, efficient and 'economical
manner. In the days ahead we must think more and
more about eliminating waste of community resources
and discarding of costly stop-gap devices which we
have invented in order to keep peace in the family.

Increasing Overseas Needs
It is, however, important to bear in mind that while
general interest in overseas causes may continue for
some time after the war, Jewish needs in the postwar
period will be even higher than they are now. It is
doubtful whether the general community will continue
the same high level of giving.. Under these circum-
stances, it seems the. Jewish community may be com-
pelled to withdraw from the - general community chest
and campaign' independently for 'national and overseas
needs, while remaining in the conmiunity chest for

Thespirit of the times is to think in terms of sound
democratic institutions which will reflect the wishes: .
and meet the needs of the people. We must adopt this
spirit and apply it to our own community. life. We must
not continue to retain the old and outworn because of
sentimental attachment. We must not be afraid to
create new forms and new ideas, just because they are
new, it they hold the prorhise of greater good and__
better service. Only by bold and courageous action will

local needs, as heretofore. These are straws in thg

'our progress and our aims be achieved.

f,

