6 Friday, November 7, 1980
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
CJF Responsibilities Increase
By MAX M. FISHER
Former President, CJF
Our greetings
to the
Council of
Jewish
Federations
Detroit will be the focus of
Jewish attention for all of
North America, and in some
respects for the Jews of the
entire free world, when the
CJF General Assembly
meets here. We will have
the foremost community
leaders with us to diagnose
the major issues we face,
and to determine how best
to deal with them. Most im-
portant, what is planned
here will guide the actions
of local communities and of
our national and interna-
tional work in the days,
months and years ahead.
Our agenda will be much
bigger than when the coun-
cil met here two decades
ago. In response to what has
happened in this country in
the world, and what is hap-
pening to our own under-
standing, our federation re-
sponsibilities have grown
strikingly.
Our federations are giv-
ing more emphasis to
Jewish education than
when I came into the
presidency of the council 10
years ago. The program of
Jewish education which I
espoused and promoted has
gained wide acceptance by
our communal leadership.
They have come to realize
that our future demands on
our people being deeply in-
formed of and fully commit-
ted to the ideals of Judaism.
That future includes the
Jewishness of our youth.
The General Assembly that
elected me president of CJF
in 1969 was marked by a
demonstration of young
people which made a deep
and lasting impression on
the leadership.
I know intimately the
greater role the CJF and our
federations have been tak-
ing in world Jewish respon-
sibilities: the reconstruc-
tion of the Jewish Agency
Executive Director
Jewish Welfare Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit
TVIONTGONIER
ARD
Bringing service and quality to
America for over 109 years
for Israel, work for Soviet
Jews and Jews endangered
in other lands.
Our people understand
the interdependence of
Jewish communities
everywhere, and the im-
perative of working to-
gether in the closest cooper-
ation. That will be the
hallmark of the General As-
sembly here in Detroit.
Historic Pattern Is Recognized
in CJF Assembly Sessions
By SOL DRACHLER
Wards welcomes you to
Metropolitan Detroit.
A city proud of its
Jewish traditions
and organizations.
MAX FISHER
The Council of Jewish
Federations' return to De-
troit for the 49th General
Assembly is an event we ac-
knowledge with great
pleasure, from both a per-
sonal and an historical
perspective: Detroit was one
of 15 Jewish communities
which met in 1932 to im-
plement the organization of
the CJF.
That meeting, at which
the Detroit Federation was
represented by Henry
Wineman, Clarence Eng-
gass and Executive Director
Kurt B. Peiser, was the be-
ginning of a close and con-
tinuous relationship with
the CJF.
At this and previous as-
. semblies hosted by Detroit,
in 1946 and 1960, the
agenda for action reflects
changing conditions for us
at home and our fellow Jews
around the world. Our ob-
jectives look to the decade of
the 80s, but many issues are
reminiscent of those articu-
lated in 1932 and reappear-
ing in 1946 and 1960.
Whether federations
should finance "national
and international Jewish
organizations" was a
question raised at the
CJF organizing meeting.
The observations are
familiar to budgeting
committees in the 1980s!
The 1946 General As-
sembly in Detroit also took
up the question of financing
non-local agencies. By this
time, overseas programs in
Europe and then-Palestine
were primary beneficiaries
of federation campaigns.
Organized communities
demanded from CJF a
stronger national
mechanism for bringing
order into a chaotic situa-
tion. A proposal called Na-
tional Advisory Budgeting
was bitterly debated and,
SOL DRACHLER
finally, overwhelmingly de-
feated by the GA delegates.
This action in Detroit
gave rise to more complete
national agency budget
analysis by the CJF and
later to the creation of the
Large City Budgeting Con-
ference. Deliberations by
the LCBC, of which Detroit
Federation President
George M. Zeltzer is former
chairman, became an im-
portant part of the General
Assembly in 1960 and are
even more prominent in this
year's assembly program.
After the establishment
of the state of Israel, financ-
ing overseas programs be-
came the dominant aspect of
non-local allocations. Two
decades ago, the GA devoted
a major session to the "Re-
organization of American
Jewish Philanthropic Aid in
Israel." The chairman of the
session was Max M. Fisher,
who went on to become the
first chairman of the reor-
ganized Jewish Agency, and
who, like Paul Zuckerman,
served as national general
chairman of the United
Jewish Appeal.
With CJF participation
the process of reorganiza-
tion and the increase in
American and Diaspora in-
volvement continues.
At the time of the 1946
Assembly, Detroit had the
largest Jewish communal
school system in America,
and Abe Kasle, its
president, chaired a session
on "Jewish Community Re-
sponsibility for Jewish Edu-
cation." By 1960, Kasle and
Morris Garvett had re-
ceived the council's Rosen-
berg Award for leadership
in developing Detroit's
communal school, and the
assembly session was edu-
cated to "Rethinking Fed-
eration's Role" on Jewish
education.
Local and national inter-
est in Jewish education has
broadened considerably by
the 1980s, and a pertinent
assembly session is titled
"Developing Cultural Re-
sources as Part of the Ongo-
ing Communal Agenda."
Women's Division was
not on the formal agenda in
1946 although Detroit al-
ready had a functioning
Women's Division. By 1960,
there was an official assem-
bly session chaired by Mrs.
Harry L. Jones and one of
the four workshops ad-
dressed by Mrs. John C.
Hopp.
The 15 member-com-
munities who organized
the CJF have grown to
more than 200. They
raise some $500 million
annually; they have
endowment fund re-
sources of more than $300
million. Their programs
reach around the globe.
In Detroit, where in 1933
a total of 3,330 contributor'
raised about $113,000,
there are now some 23,000
contributors who give more
than $18 million annually.
More significantly, the
program of service has in-
creased among youth and
the aged, in health and wel-
fare, education and culture,
rescue and rehabilitation.
All of this has taken in-
spired leadership and an in-
creasing number of devoted
participants.
This year promises to be
another milestone as
American Jewry works to-
gether toward strengthen-
ing Jewish life here and
around the world.