Newspaper Page Text
P*8« Six
THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Friday, May 12, 1972
American News Report .... By Ben (iallob
How An Orthodox College
Student Spotlighted Jewish Poor
(I-ast of Three Tarts)
One of the reasons why Jew
ish poverty has so long been in
visible in American Jewish life
is that the usual indices for
official definitions of poverty —
and corresponding eligibilty for
aid from government anti pov
erty programs — simply do not
apply to Jews, according to the
few experts on the problem.
For example, the official yard
sticks are rates of welfare aid,
infant mortality and juvenile de
linquency, forms of social dis
organization which rarely apply
to Jews. As another example,
particularly in New York City,
the anti-poverty machinery di
rected by the Human Resources
Administration is geared to pro
vide help —- such as it is — to
compact masses of poor resi
dents. There are thousands of
poor Jews — out of a suddenly-
discovered 250,000 or more such
New York City Jews — scattered
through the city who are, by
such measuring rods — invisible
to the anti-poverty scanners.
Jewish poverty lacks the kind
of desperate degradation true of
poor Blacks and Puerto Ricans.
An estimated 60 percent of poor
Jews are elderly and many of
the remaining 40 percent are
Hassidic families who are poor
because of their Orthodox life
styles. Rosen has a special sym
pathy for the Hassidic poor
stemming from the fact that his
maternal grandfather was the
Moditze Rebl>e in Poland.
In response to the uniqueness
of Jewish poverty, the Associa
tion of Jewish Anti-Poverty
Workers has developed a pro
gram which seeks to enlarge the
city’s anti-poverty structure to
include a maximum number of
poor Jews, both in terms of
more meaningful official criteria
of poverty and in geographical
spread. The association proposes
creation of a Jewish city-wide
agency to be operated by a
board of directors elected on a
grass-roots basis from and by
the Jewish poor in the 15 of the
city's 20 official poverty areas
where, the association contends,
there are Jewish poor not rep
resented on the locally-elected
anti-poverty agencies. Such a
city-wide board, Rosen points
out would not 1h‘ a novelty in
the city apparatus. Eight such
city-wide agencies now function
for Catholic. Black and Puerto
Rican poor A Jewish city-wide
board could not only give rep
resentation to presently unrep
resented Jews in the official
poverty areas but also to those
Jews who live in city pockets
of poverty outside the official
areas.
One of tile reasons the .As
sociation of Jewish Anti-Poverty
Workers has as me of its long-
range goals creation of a Jewish
city-wide agency to represent
the city's 250,000 >r moil' Jew
ish. poor is 'tie luestion if rep
resentation on the boards of "lie
local poverty agencies, 'he com
munity corporations Of 'he 26
such locally-elected agencies n
the city’s officially-designated
poverty areas, only two—those
in Crown Heights and Williams
burg — have substantial Jewish
representation on their boards.
According to Rosen, guidelines
areas where it is recognized
there are poor Jewish residents,
says Rosen, a proportionate
number of Jewish poor should
be named immediately to those
boards. The present lack of such
representation, he contends, vio
lates OEO guidelines. In every
city povert” area, he also pro
poses, there should be at least
one delegate agency for poor
Jews. Delegate agencies repres
ent ethnic groups in creating
anti-poverty" progrums for the
poor, obtaining poverty funds
for those programs and imple
menting them.
Rosen agrees that his associa
tion, based on voluntary mem
bership and resources, lacks du
rability. Whether it is the as
sociation, or some similar group,
he says, a full-time advocacy
organization us needed for the
city’s poor Jews. It should be
financed by Jewish communal
funds, provided the arrange
ments did not hamper its work.
The relations of Rosen and the
association with the Jewish es
tablishment range from correct
to hostile — in both directions.
Rosen has been stressing that
more and more government
poverty funds are being chan
neled into the Jewish establish
ment.- specifically the Federation
of Jewish Philanthropies. He
cites, as an example, the Fed
eration's Jewish Association for
Services for the Aged. JASA is
involved in a wide and growing
range of services to the Jewish
aged. JASA receives govern
ment funds for various elements
if its program, as do other Fed
eration agencies. Rosen feels
that such funds are being prop
erly used and his objection is
not to the growing role of the
Jewish establishment but to
what he calls the establishment’s
determination to decide what
poor Jews need without consult
ing the poor Jews and without
Riving them representation on
the policy-making boards which
make those decisions.
Bernard Warach, executive di
rector of JASA, disagrees. In a
statement to the Jewish Tele
graphic Agency, he said that in
recent decades, Federation-affil
iated health, welfare and educa
tional agencies have broadened
representation on their boards,
advisory committees and plann
ing councils “to reflect the com
position of their local commun
ities" Increasingly, he added,
“a broader cross-section of in
dividuals, including people
served, adherents of the various
ideologies of Judaism, women
and young people, has been
taking a more active and con-
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SERVING METROPOLITAN ATLANTA
cerned role in the planning and
delivery services” by the Fed
eration agencies. The JASA
executive also asserted that “in
creased efforts are being made
to include representatives of the
traditonal Orthodox commun
ities, and of the poor Jewish
aged on advisory committees of
some of Federation’s social agen
cies,’ including JASA. He also
said that “forward looking met
ropolitan Jewish social agencies,
such as JASA are committed
to broadening the participation
of the elderly and a cross sec
tion of concerned Jewish com
munity leaders in every neigh
borhood of service, in carrying
forward the work of the organ
izations.” He added that current
ly, JASA was organizing com
munity advisory committees in
the poverty areas of the Rock-
aways in Queens and Williams
burg in Brooklyn and that “sim
ilar committees are planned for
other areas where the services
of JASA are being expanded.”
To this Rosen has responded that
the association considered such
advisory roles as “token ges
tures” and that what poor Jews
needed and wanted was com
munity participation and decis
ion-making powers on all Jewish
agencies giving aid both locally
and on a city-wide basis which
affect the lives of the Jewish
poor.
One of Rosen's critics is Rabbi
Bernard Weinberger, a Young
Israel rabbi who for several
years was the only Orthodox
Jew on the New York City
Council Against Poverty, the
city’s policy-making agency for
poverty programs. Rabbi Wein
berger, who was named early in
January as assistant administra
tor for special projects in the
Human Resources Administra
tion and as liaison to Mayor
Lindsay for community rela
tions, said last fall that he felt
that Rosen had made his point
and should “cool it.” Rosen re
plied that Rabbi Weinberger
spoke as one who represented
the establishment viewpoint to
the effect that grass roots groups
should not have any say on how
government aid to poor Jews Is
determined and applied. Rabbi
Weinberger told the JTA that in
contending Rosen had made his
case, he meant that Rosen’s com
plaints were exaggerated in
respect to Jewish participation
in Congressionally-earmar k e d
funds for such specific projects
as Head Start, Manpower Career
Development, on-the-job train
ing and the Neighborhood Youth
Corps. Rabbi Weinberger said
that if one were to pull to
gether all of such specific pro
grams in which poor Jews do
participate, Rosen’s charges of
the Jewish poor not getting
their share were not valid.
Rosen retorted that such a gen
eralization was untrue.
Rabbi Weinberger also dis
puted Rosen’s charge he repres
ented an establishment opposi
tion to grass roots participation
in determining how poverty
funds should be spent. He said
Continued on page 7
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