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March 16, 1973—Supplement to The Jewish News—Page 5

Twenty-Five Years of Kinship and Commitment

by
SAMUEL FRANKEL and PAUL M. HANDLEMAN

General Chairmen, 1973 Allied Jewish Campaign-
Israel Emergency Fund

A 25th anniversary is a landmark in the life of a
nation. That a small state such as Israel, 'born into a
rapidly paced world and having to contend from her
birth with harassment, hostility and overwhelming ec-
onomic problems, has survived as an independent country
is a source of pride and inspiration.
Her survival and her accomplishments are a testi-
monial to the strength perseverance, and continuity of
the Jewish people. Her successful absorption of more
than 375,000 families to date, immigrants from 100
countries who speak 70 different languages, is a con-
firmation of the ingenuity of a strong people whose
centuries-old tradition has been to deal with and sur-
mount problems as they arise.
Israel's achievements as she establishes industry,
as she settles development towns, as she makes tillable
previously unproductive land, as she provides for de-
fense and security, all lend proof to a fact long acknowl-
edged: that the Jewish people triumph in the face of
incredible odds. But the most significant triumph of all
is the rescue and restoration of a people.
Our Detroit community has participated consistent-
ly and generously as a partner in Israel's development.
During the past quarter century, our support of Israel,

through the allocations of the Allied Jewish Campaign,
(and since 1967, through the additional means of the
Israel Emergency Fund), has totaled almost $100,000,000
for help with social, economic, housing and educational
problems.

Combined fund-raising has been a tradition in De-
troit since 1925 when the initial AJC raised $150,000
from 2,794 contributors. When Israel was reborn in 1948,
the precedent for helping with overseas needs on a
united ,basis already spanned more than two decades.
Our focus in those years was rescue, social services,
and the maintenance of life and decency of distressed
Jews. The concentration camps and the refugee camps
fired our sense of kinship.
Devoted community leaders (listed on the back cover
of this supplement) worked with dedicated volunteers
to coordinate the annual efforts through the pre-World
War II years, during the Holocaust when the Campaign
became, for three years, the War Chest, and with the
re-establishment of the Allied Jewish Campaign in the
years which immediately preceded the establishment of
Israel's statehood.
In the 25 years since 1948, and under inspired,
leadership which has always elicited generous and faith-
ful response from the community, funds raised have
helped with various migrations; that of the remnant of
the Holocaust, that from the Moslem and Arab coun-
tries, the ongoing movement of Jews from other countries
around the world, and the current miraculous tide of
immigration from Soviet Russia.

The 1967 crisis of the Six-Day War brought into be-
ing the Israel Emergency Fund, an additional effort by
the Detroit community which that year supplemented
the traditional Allied Jewish Campaign.

In 1968 the two drives were merged and for the past
six •years, Detroit's organized communal effort to pro-
vide for human needs, local, national, and overseas, has
been known as the Allied Jewish Campaign-Israel Emer-
gency Fund.
As the present time in Israel, construction of hous-
ing for new immigrants and for those already established
as •citizens, the founding of educational institutions on
• all levels from pre-school to post-graduate, and the opera-
tions of facilities to take care of the ill and the aged
are a few examples of the help made possible by the

Campaign in Detroit and in other communities through-
out the world.
Those Jews who remain in the countries of their
birth are also given aid through the Campaign. For ex-
ample, the Campaign beneficiary best known as "Joint"
—the Joint Distribution Committee—has for decades pro-
vided shelter, food, and clothing for those in need around
the world. Joint today has active programs in 30
countries.

Such services parallel those we provide within, our
own local community. In the past few years, we have
seen the building of Federation Apartments, a residence
for senior citizens able to live independently, and the
dedication of new headquarters for the Jewish Voca-
tional Service-Community Workshop, an agency which
helps with job counseling and placement, and with re-
habilitation.

We are responding locally to the expressed concern
of the community with a greater emphasis on Jewish
education and on Jewish content in our health and wel-
fare programs, such as a series of weekend retreats for
collegians and campus programs at Oakland University
and the University of Michigan.
Our responsibility to the tradition of aiding Jews
around the world in need of succor has, at times, weighed
heavily upon our shoulders. But Detroit has always re-
sponded generously. In times of crisis such as the recent
disaster in the Wilkes-Barre community, when a flood
damaged and destroyed a great many of the Jewish in-
stitutions there. Detroit, joining with other cities, was
able to help, by, a grant, the rebuilding of those institu-
tons and the restoration of those human services so
vital to life as a community, particularly in a time of
upheaval such as that in Wilkes-Barre.

There is one factor responsible for this continued
means of support for distressed Jews. The Jewish people
of Detroit are people who have always been ready to
acknowledge and share the bond of brotherhood with
Jews throughout the world. They are aware that they
have been born to the Promise made by their forebear-
ers to protect one another from oppression, to care for
one another in need.

Detroit leaders have traveled to Israel and con-
versed with high government and agency officials about
the needs of Israel. They have brought back a determi-
nation to work ever harder on Campaign.
Several of our Detroit leaders are now in positions
of national and international responsibilty helping to lead
a community larger than Detroit.

Paul Zuckerman now serves as the general chair-
man of the national United Jewish Appeal, the AJC-IEF
major beneficiary which deals directly with aid to Israel
and overseas. Max M. Fisher, immediate past president
of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds,
is chairman of the Jewish Agency which provides for
the vital absorption and immigration services in Israel.
Hy Safran has recently accepted the chairmanship of
the national Institute for Jewish Life, an organization
concerned with the changing patterns of society in this
country and focusing upon the improvement of the
quality of Jewish life.

Those who have listened and he--4 the miraculous
stories of what is being accomplis in Israel today
and what is being done to help distressed Jews else-
where are responding by keeping that age-old Promise.
As we approach the formal opening of the 1973
Allied Jewish Campaign-Israel Emergency Fund, we
have confidence that we can continue that fine tradition
of success which has enabled us to send $100,000,000 for
use overseas and in Israel in the past quarter centry,
while maintaining a strong Jewish community at home,
We are keeping the Promise, and we will continue to do
so, as we strive for the fulfillment of the major aspira-
tions of our ancient faith, peace, prosperity, and tran-
quility for all mankind.

