CJFWF's Assembly Tackles Major Issues Affecting Worldwide Jewish Communities (Continued from Page 1) The urban crisis was thoroughly reviewed, and a major address on the subject was delivered by Max Fisher, chairman of the New De- troit Committee. Drawing major attention by its challenge to Jewish parents and to communal spokesmen, Dr. Leonard J. Fein, director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, posed the question, "Can we permit ourselves to suppose that our children do not know that Jewish parents would not tolerate for one day in their children's public schools the con- dition which they accept as a matter of course in their chil- dren's Hebrew schools?" He thereupon expressed concern that "commitment of the young to Jewish survival is rapidly at- tenuating, that the Jewish past is increasingly irrelevant to the young and the Jewish future therefore cannot be safely entrust- ed to their keeping." Dr. Fein, who delivered the annual Herbert Abeles Memorial Address, on the subject "Jewish Identification and Commitment," presented a rather gloomy outlook of existing conditions, deploring that Jewish education- is not a pre- requisite for Jewish communal leadership and that Jewish back- ground does not count for very much as a qualification for pro- fessional leadership in the Jewish community. He declared: "I know of at least one school of social work which has, over the years, received hundreds of inquiries from Jewish agencies regarding the qualifications of particular students for employ- ment, and not once, in all these hundreds of cases, -has there been any inquiry at all concern- ing the student's Jewish back- ground." Admitting that he cannot "in honesty contend that the managers of Jewish public life are conscious- ly opposed to Jewish education." Dr. Fein said: "Their problem is more confusion than evil. But it is plain that the inertial direction of our communal institutions is sim- ply not responsive to the repeated warnings of disaster and urgings toward reform." The urgency of the problems of improving Jewish education, Dr. Fein lamented, is the fact "that our consciousness of crisis will not find a response in our behaviors; we shall continue, as in the past, to be guided by inertia, to permit prevailing structures to absorb our energies." Even if the American Jewish community doubles the $70,000,000 a year it is now spending on Jew- ish education, Dr. Fein said that more money is not the total ans- wer. "The answer," he said, "lies in the direction of supporting experi- mentation, of using Federation dollars as seed money, in a con- scious effort to break through to new educational patterns. The al- ternative to such use, the peipetu- ation of prevailing patterns, sim- ply will not produce effective re- sults by any standard- of cost- benefit analysis. Marginal in- increases in across-the-board per capita support are not likely to mean very much-, and significant increases are likely not possible. But explicit subsidies for those who dare to re-think our educa- tional assumptions, incentive pay- . meats for those who demonstrate continued excellence,-the purchase of expert consulting 'time, rewards for innovationthese are likely to be the investments which have multiplier effects.-.They hre poli- tically more difficult than trans- 48 Friday, Naveinber 22, 1968 — - fer payments, no doubt, but they are educationally more valuable." Dr. Fein expressed the feeling that all efforts to sustain a strong Judaism, including better Jewish education, will fail as long as "the general stance of our community remains, in its core, a public re- lations stance. Dealing with a related theme, the needs of the campus com- munity, Dr. Leon A. Jick of Brandeis University declared there is need for a "growing Jewish presence on the cam- pus," that "we must not de- nounce students for their apa- thy." He said t h e situation would be worse if not for the significant efforts of the Hillel Foundation. Dr. Jick pointed out that- the Jewish college students of this generation are not separated mere- ly by the "generation gap" which operates in the total culture but they know a "totally different ex- perience of the meaning of Jew- ishness. They do not remember Hitler or the phenomenon of Jew- ish homelessness. To them, the state of Israel is not an achieve- ment, it is a reality which is taken for granted. They no longer re- member the community of immi- grants with its struggles and dis- abilities—but also with its unique strengths and its endearing qual- ities. As a result, they have tasted neither Jewish sorrow nor Jewish joy. They know neither Jewish insecurity nor Jewish solidarity. Jewishly speaking, they have grown up in a world totally differ- ent from all that of previous Dias- pora generations." He stated that unless something is done to change "the temper of Jewish college youth, American Jewry faces a crisis of continuity." He said that "Creative Jewish spiritual survival is now a con- cern of highest priority." He urged a three-point program for a national unified effort on t h e American college campus: 1. A greatly enlarged program of suport for Jewish scholarship on the college campuses in which the recently established National Foundation for Jewish Culture is a "significant step in the right direction." 2. The influence and affluence of the Jewish community must be exerted to expand new courses in Judaica in American universities. 3. The strengthening of the Jew- ish communal presence on the campus through the instrumental- ity of the Hillel Foundation to meet "the more severe criticism which college youth have leveled at us, that we are hypocrites whose deeds do not match our words." Resolutions adopted by the as- sembly called for support for minority groups in crisis-ridden American urban centers, aid for Israel's unprecedented social wel- fare needs, more intensive and improved Jewish vocational facili- ties. The resolution on aid to Israel called for "massive support" in 1969 of the Emergency Fund of the United Jewish Appeal. The resolution further stated that for 1969, more than double the amount raised in 1968 is need- ed. In addition, 1969 needs require additional funds to meet the "new perils of Jews" that are fleeing to Israel and the other nations of the free world from Czechoslo- vakia, Poland and Egypt. The delegates pledged their sup- port to the. Prime Minister's Con- ference on Human Needs in Israel, being convened in Jerusalem in June 1969. President Johnson was com- mended for his declaration of THE DETROIT JEWISH 'NEWS . Sept. 10 in which he made a Negroes, and rehabilitation serv- plea for "a real peace of justice ices for the aged, the young and and reconciliation — not a cease the handicapped." fire, not a temporary truce, not He particularly suggested that a renewal of the fragile armi- organized Jewish communities can stice." President elect Nixon give "important help in providing was also praised for his recent opportunities for Negroes to de- "vigorous and forthright dec. velop businesses of their own. larations reaffirming the tradi- This would only mean doing some- tional U.S. commitment to the thing for Negroes that we have security and peace of Israel." been doing in our own local com- The Soviet Union was criticized munities and overseas for years. for its "systematic strangulation It would require setting up econo- of Jewish religious, cultural and mic committees or loan funds communal life" within its borders. ready to put up risk capital—at The American Jewish Conference very low interest rates—to back on Soviet Jewry was commended Inner City people who come for- for its efforts "to spread aware- ward with worthwhile business ness of the special discrimination plans." Despite the attacks by Negro to which. Jews are subjected by the Soviet Union and to arouse world- militants on Jewish merchants wide condemnation of anti-Semi- still in the ghetto, the Jewish tism in the Soviet Union." The landlord, the Jewish housewife Soviet government was particular- who hires Negro cleaning help, the ly criticized for not living up to Jewish social worker and Jewish the statement made last year by teacher, and the supporter of Is- Premier Kosygin in which he rael, Fisher concluded, that "we promised that family reunion with as Americans and Jews. have it relatives in other countries of the within our power to make a sub- world would - be facilitated by So- stantial and highly creative con- tribution to the equal rights effort viet authorities. and to the people of the Inner The Polish government was City." condemned "for its cynical ex- (The 1968 Humanitarian Award ploitation of . anti-Semitism thin- of the Jewish Agencies of Greater ly disguised as anti-Zionism." Philadelphia will be given to On the home front, a resolution Fisher Sunday evening at a din- stated that the ever - increasing ner in Philadelphia). crises in America's cities now pre- Projecting a portrait of the sent a serious threat to Ameri- American Jewish communal pro- can democratic institutions that gram for the next 25 years, Philip "will not be solved by repressive , Bernstein, executive vice president action directed at symptoms and of the Council of Federations, in frustrations; nor by polarization of , the second major banquet address prejudices by extremists; nor byl on Saturday night, stated: action of Congress in cutting back 1. Our hospitals will more and on essential programs and appro- more concern themselves with re- priations." search in an attempt to find the Stating that there is "no more causes and prevention - and cures pressing priority for our nation of the illnesses that still baffle us than the crisis in our cities," the —such diseases as cancer, hyper- resolution said that "the report of tension and the heart. the President's Commission on 2. The problem of creating com- Civil Disorders must be imple- mented" and that the U.S. "can prehensive programs for the aged reverse the trend only if it deals is of growing significance. 3. Child care is no longer a with the root causes." Jewish life in the U.S., another matter of orphanages, which resolution said, needs the stren- have completely disappeared. "What concerns us now, and gthening that can come from ex- panded and improved programs what will concern us even more in the years ahead," he said, in the field of Jewish education. A parallel resolution applauded "will be our emotionally-disturb- ed children. The time to get at the establishment of the Bureau mental illness is in youth, when for Careers in Jewish Service and the recent steps taken to meet we can prevent a lifetithe of shortages of personnel in Jewish tragedy — for the children, and for their parents." communal agencies. 4. Family life, he said, "is in The Large City Budgeting Con- ference, on the occasion of its 20th trouble, beset by confusion and by erosion. I believe our family agen- anniversary, was commended for its accomplishments which have cies will need to join with our "resulted in more effective pro- rabbis to strengthen the very in- grams and 'greater concentration stitution of Jewish family life it- on the most important" needs, with self." 5. Jewish education with each improved budgeting' a n d fiscal passing year will have a more sig- operations." nificant place on the Jewish com- In his address at the assem- munity agenda "because Jewish - bly's banquet session in which education is the very heart of our he reviewed the issues created by the urban crisis, Fisher de- future; because it is axiomatic that there can be no Jewish future clared that "anti-Semitism does not give the Jews any excuse to without Judaism." 6. Leisure-time activities will be- withdraw from the battle for come ever more important. equal rights and_ justice for the Negro." 7. "The black revolution," Bern- Fisher stated emphatically that stein said, "is the great moral even if Jews are told that they are crisis of this. generation and of the "not wanted and not welcome in next. What we do td solve the prob- the inner city," the Jewish com- lems of minority groups 'in our munity must participate in achiev- urban communities is a test of our ing the "goals of the equal rights moral integrity as a nation,: and struggle." He urged the formation our moral integrity as a people." of local Jewish Urban Crisis pro- 8. The problem of Jews overseas, grams on a community-wide basis in Israel, in Eastern -Europe and and warned that those who would in the Arab countries, will need the aid the Negro community must help of American Jewry for many work with them and listen to years to come. them. - Bernstein said the Jewish com- "The areas in which help should munity of the next quarter-century be given by the JeWish community "must be an expression of Jewish a nil . all other urban coalition religious purPose., - as" well -as an groups,P he said, "should -be in expretsion . of profound American getting jobs, improving hOusing, purpose." - Providing edutational and recrea- Recent political upheavals in tional opportunities,' making- busi- Czechoslovakia,. - Poland, and the ness Opportunities available for Arab countries have caused emergency situations for : the Jews in these -countries that the Joint Distribution Committee - has not been able to fully meet be- cause of lack of adequate funds, according to Samuel L. Haber, executive vice chairman of the JDC. The problems created by the Six-Day War between Israel and the. Arab states, he said, have also increased greatly the . demands made on the JDC in the Malben program for the aged in Israel, among aged Jews in. Mo- rocco and Tunisia and among Jews in Romania and France. The extent of Jewish community participation in urban projects for Negro and other minority groups is indicated in a report based upon information from 39 communities. In making the report public, Louis J. - Fox, of Baltimore, who was re-elected CJWF president, said that "with our American cities so deeply concerned and troubled by the problems of their urban areas, it is the duty of the organi- zed community to help create and activate effective organized ap- proaches" such as urban coalitions in all of our cities with which we must be fully involved." Among the activities in some of the communities he reported that Detroit has sponsored a four-year college program scholarship for 25 inner-city youngsters and an apartment housing project for 200 older persons. Reporting that one-third of all residents of old age homes were found to have "moderately ad- vanced mental impairment and an additional one-quarter severe men- tal impairment," a survey present- ed today to the assembly declared that programs for the mentally im- paired too often are poor. Residents of old age homes are "now older as a group, better educated, more likely to be on public assistance, and with a shorter life expectancy than was revealed in a similar study made nine years ago." The survey reached the con- clusion that a number of "homes for the aged should offer their residents more convenient and comfortable surroundings. Their programs should be more person- alized, and less formal. Fifteen Jewish community organ- izations were among the winners of 18 public relations awards in the annual contest sponsored by CJFWF. Announcement of the win- ners was made by Isidor Schifrin of Cincinnati, chairman of the judging committee, A plea to American Jewry to give top priority to the projected 1969. Emergency Fund drive was read to the delegates from Arye Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency. Gen. Rabin, in his address, ex- pressed doubts that Israel could hope to attain peace in the , near future because it appeared that neither the Soviet Union nor Egypt wanted peace and - other Arab coun- tries which might . be willing to make peace could not act under present circumstances. He said Israel was strengthening its mili- tary forces to prevent war and-to insure that, if war, 'nevertheless, - , cdid - eome, -.:"We shall win it.". The C.TEWF assembly provided an opportunity for review: of many issues affecting Jewish life, During the conference, there were sessions attended by mem- bers ' of the press, there was zi-spe- cialsembiar on the -English-Jew- ish press, the Americaii Jewish PreS AsSociation - had a confer- ence; and- a special Jewish Tele- graphic Agency committee'had its first .meeting in Atlanta. The lot- ter,::under the chairinanship of Di- treat-, ap- Philip Slcimmiitz pointed by JTA President - Robert Arnow, outlined 'new prdgrams for . new coverage • and _feature serv- ices for American newspapers.