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Community Currents
Southwestern Jewish Press, July 21, 1950

By Albert Hutler, Executive Director, United Jewish Fund

How much money is raised by Jewish organizations in San Diego for local, national and overseas, needs, is a question which has been asked by many.  It might be worth while to make a study of how much money each organization raises for its own purposes. I wager we would find this most enlightening.  Sitting here and writing this column gives me an opportunity to make an estimate. I would place it at about $435,000 raised by Jewish organizations in San Diego in 1949, of which $205,000 was raised by the United Jewish Fund.  Local organizations working for national and overseas agencies outside of the Fund, raised about $25,000, with Hadassah being the leader.  Local organizations working for local needs, such as the Old Folks Home, and our religious institutions, including the capital funds, raised about $200,000 in that year, the bulk of which is payable over a ten year period. The balance of money raised is out of the Merchant's pockets in dribs and drabs to "itinerate" collectors. Along these lines merchants are asked to beware of a surge of Ad Books for local organizations who need money for various objectives, both good and bad; influx of itinerate collectors who very often get 40 or 50 percent of the take, and various "outlaw" campaigns. It is suggested that you save your money by calling the Fund Office for information about any organization which approaches you. Cooperation continues between Welfare Agencies under the Federation setup. When council House closed because there was no further need for it, there was one elderly couple for whom proper housing could not be found. The officers and the director of the San Diego Hebrew Home for the Aged agreed there was room in the Home for this elderly newcomer couple. They are there now on a temporary basis. Here's another example of cooperation on the local level. Perhaps some of our organizations can take a lesson form this type of community coordination.  About once a week we get a question as to how many Jews there are in san Diego.  Well, let's figure it out.  There has never been a survey made, though one is planned for the fall. There are certain statistical methods of figuring population. About 650 individual families belong to the three synagogues. That indicates that about 2,000 men, women and children are members of the synagogues in San Diego. The usual estimate is about 50 percent non-members, which means approximately another 2,200 who are not affiliated. Let's look at it another way. The United Jewish Fund has about 2,300 names on its files, of which 1,600 are individual families.  Figuring about 3.1 to every Jewish family you come up with a figure of 4,960. Add to that the several hundred families we know nothing about and yet get a figure of between 5,002 and 6,000 Jews in San Diego. Maybe now our phone will stop ringing with this request.