"We Shall Go Forward ",
Kinship with Fellow Jews
Through Allied Campaign
By ISIDORE SOBELOFF
Executive Vice-President, Jewish Welfare Federation
In an American society, unlike the European com-
munity from which most of our parents and grandparents
came, all of us have had tremendous advantages as indi-
viduals, to walk free, to absorb the learning of the larger
world, to philosophize as we please and to build our
material resources. With these -advantages have come
the great challenges of voluntarisni. We can belong to
the organized Jewish community or not belong. We can
give or not give. We can work or not work.
Yes, we can participate and we can abstain and this
can be our weakness—and this at the same time is our
strength. Within the Jewish community itself, with all
our advertised suburban drift and homogeneity, we are
a confederation of sub-groups, united perhaps most of
all in our heritage and in our respect for the dignity of
the individual. We are still learning through our united
Allied Jewish Campaign to pool our resources for the
common good. Some of us—fortunately only a few—feel
that we can criticize without contributing—a new kind
of tyranny, representation without taxation. We have
nonetheless established an address for a Jewish com-
munity that can communicate with our fellow - Jews
everywhere — and uphold them in their hopes and their
aspirations. The progress we have made in developing
our social services has offered a salutary answer to
doubters of our American future. Each of us, from what-
ever point we approach the problem, can offer his solu-
tions, but only all of us, working together, can hope to
influence the future for all of us.
A gift to the Allied Jewish Campaign is the way
25,000 Detroiters show their kinship with, and concern
for, their fellow-Jews all over the world who desper-
ately need help.
The Allied Jewish Campaign is one of the oldest and
most successful fund-raising drives in the United States.
If the average contributor were asked to guess the total
amount raised in all Campaigns, since the first in 1926,
a guess might be 16 or 18 million dollars. Few contribu-
tors would guess than the Campaign has raised as much
as 25 million dollars. Actually, since 1926, more than
80 million dollars has been raised. .
This staggering sum has been raised because almost
everyone contributes to the Campaign. Jews of all walks
of life have voluntarily contributed to the well-being of
their fellow-Jews. Contributing to the Allied. Jewish
Campaign is a tradition in Detroit. Children make their
first contribution when they enter religious school.
Many families budget a contribution to. the Campaign
as they do other yearly expenses that must be met. The
success of the Campaign is due in large measure to the
contributors' knowledge that a gift to the Campaign must
recognize all the causes and services that benefit. The
combined Campaign benefits from the economies of a
single, rather than many fund-raising drives, only if each
contributor realizes his one gift must be divided among
many causes.
My Brother's Keeper
By RABBI
HERBERT A. FRIEDMAN
Executive Vice-Chairman
United Jewish Appeal
In 1938, a few men, deeply
stirred by the ominous events
in Nazi Germany, concluded
that only through a unified d-
i fort on the part of American
Jewry could effective help be
brought to the Jews in peril.
And because this decision was
necessary, wise and sound, it
struck a responsive chord in
the hearts of the people and
the UJA came into being.
In the first quarter of a cen-
tury of its life, the UJA has
been many things.
Tens of thousands of Jews
are alive today because UJA
1. agencies brought food, medi-
cine and clothing to Jews in
the concentration camps,
ghettos and in hiding, and be-
cause of the relentless efforts
on the part of these agencies
to open avenues of escape to,
Jews consigned to death.
Then there was the chal-
lenge of the survivors who
made their way into the dis-
placed persons camps. UJA
• funds helped to restore their
health and their will to live.
Then Israel was born and
there was the challenge of the
opportunity to solve the prob-
lem of the homelessness of the
survivors of the Nazi holocaust
and the insecurity of the Jews
who found themselves in Mos-
' lem lands—Yemen, Iraq, Egypt,
Libya. Not one Jew who wanted
to go to Israel was left behind.
These challenges have con-
tinued to the present day. Jews
who broke out of Hungary in
the 1956 uprising; Jews who
were repatriated to Poland who
could not pick up the threads
of life in ghost communities;
Jews whose position became un-
tenable in the face of events
in the North African countries;
and Jews from other parts of
the world where life for them
was burdensome, have been
part of the steady march to-
wards freedom in Israel and
in other democratic lands. The
fact that all these challenges
have been met—and met with
such great compassion for those
in need—is of the very essence
of the perennial story of the
UJA.
UJA funds have helped to
fight hunger and disease in
North Africa, poverty in Iran,
and old age and physical dis-
abilities in Israel and in other
parts of the world.
The UJA has been a philan-
thropy in the spirit of "tzedaka,"
the Hebrew word which incor-
porates the concepts of right-
eousness and justice. The hun-
dreds of millions of dollars that
the Jews of America have con-
tributed to the UJA have been
a tax which the Jews have im-
posed upon themselves because
their common faith had taught
them that it was only just and
righteous that they should share
their material possessions with
their fellow-Jews—their broth-
ers—in need.
-
A Message From
HON. HERBERT H. LEHMAN
Honorary General Chairman,
UJA 25th Anniversary Year Committee
I consider myself personally privileged to
be able to participate in the observance of
the 25th Anriiversary of the UJA. Necessity
brought the UJA into being, but heart, com-
passion and warmth of soul have nurtured and
sustained it and made it the great cause it
has become. The WA has brought out the
best in each of us. .
I am confident that, as we observe the 25th
Anniversary, we shall not only take pride in
the record of our achievements but shall find
inspiration in that record to go forward with
our great mission of rescue and reconstruction.
"Your Community and the
UJA 25th Anniversary"
A Message From
WILLIAM ROSENWALD
Chairman, Committee for Community Activities
UJA 25th Anniversary Year Committee •
The Jewish communities of the United
States have ample reason to celebrate the 25th
Anniversary of the United Jewish Appeal, for
its achievements are, in fact, the achievements
of the communities. It is they who have given
the UJA the . massive support to carry out its
prodigious programs of rescue, relief and recon-
struction in behalf of our fellow Jews in need.
We, as resonsible people, must use the Anniver-
sary as an opportunity to strengthen the United
Jewish Appeal so that it can continue to meet
the challenges which confront it in 1963 and
in the years ahead.
A SALUTE
TO THE
UNITED
JEWISH APPEAL
* On the wide range of its accomplishments on
behalf of hundreds of thousands who were
forced to flee from their homes in search of
havens of refuge . . . .
* On its historic achievements in behalf of Israel
and in restoring dignity to more than a mil-
lion men, women and children who have
found new homes with the aid of this great
humanitarian agency. .
ALL TAKE PRIDE IN THE WORK
OF DETROIT'S
ALLIED JEWISH CAMPAIGN
* Whose assistance has enabled UJA to carry on its work .. .
*.Whose constructive programs have assured uninterrupted aid
for Detroit's educational, health giving, and recreational
agencies.
The Cost of This Space
Contributed by
CHARLES and DORIS GERSHENSON