The Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Interviewer: First of all, would you tell me your name, and spell it for
me, please.

Mellman: My name is Myer, M-y-e-r, W. Mellman, M-e-1-1-m-a-n.

Interviewer: Could you tell me when you were born?

Mellman: 18 November, 1919.

Interviewer: And your occupation?

Mellman: I’m a manufacturer.

Interviewer: Of what?

Mellman: Aircraft jacks, jacks for airplanes.

Interviewer: What kind of jobs have you held in the Jewish community?

Mellman: I’ve been president of B’nai B’rith, I’ve been
president of the Jewish Center, I’ve been on the board of trustees of
the Agudas Achim Synagogue. I have been chairman of several committees for the
Federation.

Interviewer: What committees?

Mellman: Chairman of the Shaliach Committee, the Personnel Services
Committee, Scholarship Committee, and some others that maybe I can’t think of it right off hand.

Interviewer: Okay. In which jobs were you most interested?

Mellman: Well, I was quite interested in the Shaliach Committee. Actually, I
would say probably that committee, and the Scholarship Committee. I’ve also been
a member of the CRC Committee for many years, but not chairman of it.

Interviewer: Did you ever lose interest in any of those?

Mellman: I think you lose a little interest after you’ve been
involved for perhaps two or three years, and your interest starts to wane a
little bit.

Interviewer: That’s just generally, not one specifically, or anything?

Mellman: That’s right; I mean, you become involved and then you
become a little more involved, and after you’re involved for a
certain period of time, why, your interest I believe does decrease somewhat,
finally.

Interviewer: Where do you think the important work in the Jewish community gets
done?

Mellman: Well, this is rather hard to answer. I believe it depends upon which
phase of the Jewish community you’re talking about. The Jewish community is
composed of several different segments. There are several different sections of
the community that are really important. They each have their own area of
importance. To some people the synagogue is probably the most important
organization and activity.

And in our community we have three large synagogues,
each of which have probably in excess of 800 members, 800 families in each
synagogue; that is, synagogues and temples. And if you had to think in terms of
providing services, and programming, and the spiritual needs of 800 families,
that’s a tremendous undertaking and obligation. So the synagogues are very
important.

The role that the Federation plays is to think in terms of general
community planning and policy. And the Federation, with the council of
organizations, does try to tie all these separate units together, but it cannot
replace, as far as I’m concerned, the certain needs of the individuals and
families of this community that they can get only from their synagogue or,
perhaps, an organization like the Jewish Center. I don’t know whether I’ve
answered your question or not, but I think that…

Interviewer: That’s fine. Let me give you this first card.

Mellman: It is important to satisfy, as much as possible, all elements of the
Jewish community because we have – first of all, we have people in different
areas, such as different synagogues, and temples; we have reform, conservative,
and orthodox, and that is not in any particular order incidently. We have people
whose needs are different. We have some people who have needs, and some people
who can only give to help take care of some of those needs.

So, all of these people are members of the community; that’s what it is, a community.
If you’re thinking in terms of the Federation, the Federation exists to take
care of the total Jewish community to the extent that it is responsible for
those areas. It is probably the only organization that has this kind of
responsibility.

Interviewer: Some of the men that I’ve talked with said that they thought the
organization and operation of the Columbus Jewish Federation was very poor and
that it ought to be revamped. How do you feel about that?

Mellman: I would have to disagree with that. The Federation as it stands
today is an evolvement of the work of many, many years. It’s not perfect only
because the needs of the community have changed, and the people connected with
the Federation have changed. The individuals that run the Federation fall into
two categories: your professionals and your lay people. Your professionals are
there on an ongoing basis, but our lay people come and go, and our lay people
have different degrees of capability and interest. A good strong lay leader;
that is, a strong president, and good strong officers do have a tremendous
amount to do with the success, or just how good a federation we’re
offering.

The Federation has a responsibility for collecting the funds for local
and national overseas needs, and it has the responsibility for distributing
these funds. The collection; that is, the solicitation of the funds and the
collecting of the funds is no easy task, it’s a very, very difficult
task. We have some people that give very adequately, and some people that give
entirely inadequately, so that the area that is involved with the fund raising
responsibility of the Federation is a difficult one to work with. However, we
have had a great deal of success in our campaigns. I measure this by comparsion
with campaigns in other communities. As far as the administration of the
Federation, this area that deals with distribution of funds, requires a great
deal of planning and effort, and it involves lots of people. And from what I’ve
seen in this area, the Federation functions very well.

There are, I’m sure, many
people who feel that the funds are not distributed in a manner that they would
like to see the money distributed, but on the whole it is done through a very
thoughtful and deliberate process, keeping in mind the needs of the various
recipients as compared to the funds available.

The other responsibilities of the
Federation that have to do with community planning, community relations, this
also takes a lot of work on the part of the nonprofessional people, but it is
really the professional that keeps all of it going because our lay leaders do
not have enough time, and in some cases as much interest as they should have in
moving the community in a proper direction. It’s easy to criticize
the Federation, but once you’ve become involved and find out how difficult it is
to get people to work, and to motivate them, then I think you have a better
understanding of just how effective and how good the Federation is.

Interviewer: If the structure of the Columbus Jewish Federation would cause some
agencies to withdraw from the Federation, who would be nominated members of the
committee to bring them back? If either the structure or the people, whatever
your answer was to the previous question.

Mellman: Are you speaking about individual names, or positions?

Interviewer: Both. Specific names, if that’s possible.

Mellman: Well, it’s difficult for me to actually foresee any time when a
beneficial agency would want to withdraw from the Federation. But if this were
to come about, and it’s difficult to pinpoint people, if this were to
happen today, let us say, in 1975 or 1976, I would imagine that the current
president, Mr.Blatt, who is a very strong individual, would very probably
appoint some individuals that are knowledgeable, that perhaps are both close to
the Federation and to the organization that is having the problem. We do have
involved in our Federation people that were formally very active and perhaps
leaders in the particular group that may have the problem – now here it’s
difficult to know exactly just who you’re talking about, but, for
instance, if you had a problem with the Jewish Center the president may call me,
having been a past president of the Jewish Center, as well as being active in
the Federation. I only use that as an example because here it depends upon the
organization and the people that are part of our leadership that were involved
in the organization. I hope that gives you your answer. I can’t agree
with what you have here, this says: young leaders should be carefully groomed to
carry on present policies of the Jewish community leadership.

I do agree with
the part that young leaders should be groomed carefully, and probably then go on
to say, to carry on the needs of the Jewish community leadership, but not
necessarily the present policies because our present policies are subject to
change at any time. We are not a group that’s looking to
continue to do everything the way we’re doing it today. I think that
young leaders should be carefully groomed to accept responsibility; to be able
to know what is right for the community, and it may be necessary, perhaps, to
change some of our present policies. In general, certain policies would not be
changed; I’m not talking about in terms of the kind of organization, the purpose
of the organization, but how we deal with certain groups, or individuals, or how
we react to certain things, these are subject to change. So, I don’t
believe that leaders have to be groomed to carry on just the present policy. The
role of the Federation over the next ten years, that’s a decade, will
generally be the same, to serve as a coordinating organization; however, some of
the individual policies will undoubtedly change over the next ten years.

Interviewer: For example.

Mellman: Well, for example, we have just taken on the responsibility of our
own community relations this year, as opposed to having a joint responsibility
with the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, but within the next few years
this could change, we could even take on a broader responsibility or, perhaps,
go back to the same way we were before. We may have a different interest as far
as Jewish education is concerned, this could be changed. I’m talking over a
longtime basis; that is, not just generally for 1975 or 1976, but the way you’ve
got this written here, this says: to continue the present policies.

I’m not trying to make a point out of order, but I believe that really the leadership of
the Federation in the next five, or six, or seven, or eight years we could have
some new, young, dynamic people come in who may see things just a little bit
differently than some of our present leaders. I can’t tell you
exactly what it would be but this is probably true. The Federation today is not
the same as it was twenty years ago either; it’s much bigger, better,
stronger, and they have a lot more people involved. Of course, the community
itself is larger, but I think the involvement with the Federation in their
community is much greater proportionately than it was twenty years ago.

Interviewer: Do you think that someone whose views are very different from
present leaders, at any one time, would have the opportunity to get at the top,
for example?

Mellman: If you’re talking about something completely reactionary, this would
be difficult because there are some people, or some individuals, that might even
want to go as far as to join the Federation only to accomplish something. Some
people feel that you that have to destroy something to get something new. This I
don’t believe could happen. But, I mean, if anybody had any different ideas on
how to accomplish good results in terms of, here again, total community
planning, then, I think, they would have an opportunity to reach the top
leadership.

Interviewer: As a Jewish community leader what do you see as some of the most
important purposes of the Jewish community? You’ve sort of already touched on
it, but…

Mellman: Well, I believe we have two or three areas of importance. It’s
difficult to say really which is the most important because they’re all very
important, and this has to do with timing too. I think Jewish education is very
important. I think the role we play in working and helping Israel is very
important. The social needs of our people are very important, and I’m thinking
in the broader term of social needs; taking care of our elderly is very
important. I think that’s about it.

Interviewer: What was the first leadership position that you held in the Jewish
community in Columbus?

Mellman: Well, I rather imagine that my first involvement,
that I can remember, of real leadership was getting involved in B’nai B’rith
organization, and becoming an officer there, and becoming present leader of the
lodge.

Interviewer: Who nominated you?

Mellman: I don’t even remember today.

Interviewer: Did you have any hesitation about accepting it at the time?

Mellman: Well, I was a little bit surprised that I was asked. Actually, in
B’nai B’rith you had to start out in one area, and in those days it was really a
job that individuals vied for, so perhaps had two or three nominees, and we used
to do some campaigning in those days, and I can remember when I ran for…I
think it was for the position of honor guard; in the B’nai B’rith
organization you had a job as honor guard, and then you became a warden, then
you became one of the two or three vice-presidents they had, or you became
president. Going through the chairs of B”nai B’rith, unless for some reason
somebody dropped out, was a six year job. And when I ran, why, I think I ran
against two other candidates. I had to make calls to people to get their support
and come out and vote for me, and printed up cards and show the names of all the
people that thought I was probably the best candidate for the office, and so
forth.

It’s a lot different today. Today, I think they have to go out and try to
knock somebody over the head to take on a job. But, in those days, they really
tried to do it because that was the most important lay organization in the
community; probably one of the most important in the world; it had the biggest
memebership.When I became president of B’nai B’rith we probably had
close to fifteen hundred members, so it was a good size organization.

Interviewer: Had you had any previous experience with that kind of work?

Mellman: I had been active in the United Jewish Fund, as it was called in
those days, on doing some soliciting, and so forth, and had worked on various
committees, and was active in the Brotherhood Council. I really don’t remember
too much, too far back today.

Interviewer: What was the first leadership position that you held in Federation?

Mellman: Well, actually, I can remember now that when I was an officer in B’nai
B’rith, at that time I was one of the chairmen of what we called the
regular division, and I think we had about five or six co-chairmen in that day,
and I was one of the individuals involved at that time. This must go back to
maybe twenty years ago or more, so this was really the first leadership position
I had as far as the Federation was concerned, and then I’ve been involved on a
regular basis. Actually, I’ve been involved in the Federation, doing some
soliciting, for over thirty-five years as part of the young men’s
division; I don’t know if they call it young men, but we had a youth
division; this was back in the middle to late 1930s.

Interviewer: Who nominated you for the first position, this chairman of the
regular division, the co-chairmanship?

Mellman: Actually, we weren’t nominated. I think a group of us, we were
asked to take on a responsibility, and the group of us that were active in B’nai
B’rith at the time undertook the responsibility to headup this particular
fund.

Interviewer: Asked by whom?

Mellman: I can’t even remember. Probably somebody, perhaps, who
was president of the Fund in those days, or something like that.

Interviewer: Do you recall having any hesitation about accepting that position?

Mellman: No, because it was a responsibility of leadership; you just had to
do it.

Interviewer: Did some of your family or friends try to get you involved in
community work?

Mellman: No. Probably friends, but never my family.

Interviewer: I’ll show you another card.

Mellman: It’s a long one. First, is Israel; number two is community services;
three is Jewish education; four is anti-Semitism, and five is finding good
professional and lay leaders. Five, perhaps, could even be further up the line
because if you have good professional, and especially good lay leaders, a lot of
these other things take care of themselves. For instance, fund raising is very
important. If you’ve got good lay leaders you’re going to do a good
job of fund raising; if you’ve got good lay leaders you’re
going to do a better job in all these areas that I’ve listed over
here. I’ve listed this as number five rather than any higher order,
but I think this is very important.

Interviewer: Why do some men make good leaders, and other men poor ones?

Mellman: Well, I think this has to do with the fact that some people really
have never been trained. Some people come about being a good leader with just
natural abilities. But I think it takes experience, and interest, and some kind
of leadership training. The fact that I consider myself to some extent a
community leader today, in that I have a very responsible job in the community –
I think that this came about because I worked with organizations, I worked in B’nai
B’rith, which was literally a training ground for becoming a community leader.
Years ago all of our community leaders were at one time president of B’nai
B’rith.

Only because when you ran an organization that big, and had
that many members, and had to plan the programming and to run an organization of
that size, you just developed certain leadership capabilities. Too often we have
people in our community that reach a position of leadership only because they
make a big gift, or something like that, but they really don’t have
good leadership qualities. I think really it’s a matter of training
and, perhaps, motivation.

Interviewer: Some people move up to top positions of leadership, why are they
chosen over others?

Mellman: In the main, I think, it’s because they’ve
exposed themselves, they’ve undertaken a responsibility to do certain tasks, and
once an individual lets it be known that he’s willing to do some
work, he’ll be given work to do. And if he does that job and does it well, even
reasonably well, then he’ll be assigned more work, and more tasks.
And this is how one gets to be a leader. That’s the way I see it.

Interviewer: Are the people that are active in the Jewish community today doing a
better or worse job than those a generation ago, in your opinion?

Mellman: Well, in my opinion, I think they’re doing a much better
job. We had some real fine community leaders in those days, but today the
community’s much larger, it’s highly organized, the needs are much
greater, the tasks that have been undertaken by community leaders are tremendous
in comparsion to the tasks that were under-taken in those days. I think they’re
doing a fine job. This is not to say that we didn’t have good people in those
days because how else would we have the Jewish Center, or all these fine new
synagogues and temples, and B’nai B’rith, Hillel
Foundation, and so forth, if we didn’t have community leaders in those days that
undertook to provide these things. But today, I think, the caliber of leadership
today is even better than it was then.

This says: I am confident that the Jewish
community is satisfied with the leadership we have, and I do not agree with
this. We even have some people that are in the position of community leadership
that feel that other areas of our community leadership are not as good as they
should be. In general, if we were to take a poll, take a vote and, perhaps, you
might get a majority of the people who would say that the community would be
satisfied with the leadership, but this would only be just a consensus, but I
think we’d still have a lot of people that are dissatisfied with the leadership.

Now, if you’re just asking about in general then, perhaps, I was wrong in my
statement at the beginning, but there are large segments of the community that
are not completely satisfied with the leadership. Not that they have a valid
reason for it, it’s only because they just don’t know exactly what is going on
and how things move.

Interviewer: What segments would that be?

Mellman: We may have some people that are interested in a different type of
parochial Jewish education than the community provides, and they may feel that
the leadership is not providing what they want. We may have some people that are
not completely happy with the relationship between the synagogues and temple,
and the Federation, and they may think that this is the responsibility of the
leadership. We may have some people that are not completely satisfied with the
kind of services that is provided to the community, let us say through the
Jewish Center.

And they may feel that this is the responsibility of community
leadership, yet, on the whole, I, as an individual am satisfied with our
leadership, but there could be segments of the community that might not feel
that the leadership is doing exactly what they should be doing.

Interviewer: If a major project such as a very large capital expenditure were
proposed who could get it accepted?

Mellman: You mean which group of people, or what?

Interviewer: Well, if there’s a group, or if there are individuals.

Mellman: Well, for instance, the Jewish Center very definitely needs some
kind of expansion or perhaps even an additional facility to take care of
community needs. I don’t know that I’m answering you as directly as you want,
but it would be up to the Jewish Center leadership to find out exactly what they
need; come up with some idea as to what it would cost and make this proposal to
the Federation leadership so that the Federation could, through a community
capital campaign, provide the funds necessary to make the improvements and
expansion that the Center leadership and Federation leadership agreed was
necessary.

Now, who could sell this, actually, I would say that it would be the
responsibility of Jewish Center leadership, first, to sell the Federation
leadership, and then once they jointly agreed that this was necessary then the
success of the community capital campaign would determine how successful this
whole project would be sold to the community. Now, this takes it away from any
individual, any specific committee; it’s really a joint thing.

Interviewer: With whom would you want to talk over such a project?

Mellman: I would say it would have to be, here again, Center leadership, in
this particular case, and a special committee of Federation leadership would
have this responsibility.

Interviewer: When you say special committee…

Mellman: Well, the president always appoints a committee to do something like
this. The committee may be the officers of the Federation or the executive
committee, but there generally would be some kind of ad hoc committee to study
something like this here; of course, it may even be the capital committee, we
have a capital needs committee of the Federation, and that could be the
committee that studies this with the Center leadership.

Here again, I was only
referring to the Jewish Center because I see a definite need there. Most
recently we had an expansion at the Heritage House, but this was taken care of
through a large grant by an individual so it was not necessary to go out to the
community for any large capital fund drive. But the only one that I can see
immediately staring us in the face is something for the Jewish Center.

Interviewer: Once it would get passed in ad hoc committee, then what would
happen?

Mellman: Well, I would imagine if the leadership of the group that needs the
expansion got a favorable response from the capital needs committee they would
jointly go to the Federation board of directors and if the timing was right then
the community would proceed with the capital funds campaign to raise the money
for that purpose.

And they probably would raise money for more than just that
particular project because once they start on a capital funds campaign they
would try to include as many projects as the community needed, at that
particular time because you can’t just have one this year, and one next year,
and one the following year. You have to have one campaign perhaps to take care
of a period of over several years.

Interviewer: To what activity in the Jewish community do you give the most time?

Mellman: Right now I’m giving the most time to the Columbus Jewish
Federation, and since I’m campaign chairman this year this is taking an awful
lot of my time.

Interviewer: Whose views usually come close to yours?

Mellman: With what respect?

Interviewer: Well, respecting the Federation, respecting the needs of the
community, or allocations, or whatever.

Mellman: Oh, in general, I find that my views are very close to that of our
director. I’ve been working rather closely with the president of the
Federation and my views to a great extent coincide with his. I don’t see that we
have any difference in viewpoints between myself and most of the people that are
in a position of leadership with the Federation today, really, I don’t see any
difference.

Interviewer: Is there any individual who can veto an important proposal or obtain
significant comprises before it is accepted?

Mellman: I would have to believe that if we have an individual, or more than
one individual, whose gift to the Federation is so large that a substantial
portion of his gift becomes a big supporting part of the local community, let us
say, I would have to believe that if this individual had any particular ideas on
how things should be done, and the ideas were in order, perhaps not completely
in agreement with some of the others, but generally in order, I believe that the
ideas of this individual would have to be dealt with, and perhaps some
compromise made.

Interviewer: Do you think that’s a good thing?

Mellman: We have to be very practical about this. The Federation ends up
giving approximately 40% of its money to local needs, and if an individual, one
individual’s gift was so large it represented almost 10% of our
campaign, let us say, that individual’s gift would be so large to all our local
agencies that I believe we’d have to respect the individual’s views
in making a determination on certain things that would happen.

If there was any big change, or violent change, well then I would say that the leadership of the
Federation would have to sit down and deal with this individual on some kind of
a basis. Generally, you do have to take that into consideration, if only from
the standpoint of being practical because if that individual would decide not to
give the money the beneficial agencies would lose a lot of the funds that they
would have.

Interviewer: Who are some of the Jewish leaders that you see informally?

Mellman: What do you mean by informally?

Interviewer: At home, or socially. Outside of the work position.

Mellman: Well, let us say on an occasional basis, we’re
involved with the people who – perhaps, some of the officers of the Federation.
Are you talking about individuals by names, or just by the positions they hold?

Interviewer: By name, well…

Mellman: Well, for instance, in the current leadership: past campaign
chairman, a member of our board of executive committee, another past campaign
chairman, and president of the Federation, the current president of the
Federation, the national chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, and other members
of the executive committee, and the board of directors of the Federation;
without naming individuals. That is about it, really.

Interviewer: Do you sometimes have non-Jews over to your home?

Mellman: Not very often. Not very often because my wife and I
do not do a lot of entertaining. We spend most of our time with our family.
She’s involved in her own business, so we’re just glad to get away from things.

Interviewer: Do you ever go over to their homes?

Mellman: As far as non-Jews, very rarely.

Interviewer: What Jewish periodicals, if any, do you read regularly?

Mellman: The National Jewish Monthly, Hadassah Magazine, Ohio
Jewish Chronicle, and the Near East Report. This is what I read
regularly.

Interviewer: Do the rabbis in the community have anything to offer in terms of
Jewish community leadership?

Mellman: Oh, I believe that they have a lot to offer, and perhaps I don’t
think that the rabbis are used enough to provide the leadership that they should
have the ability to provide, really. The rabbis of the three large congregations
have responsibility each to about 800 families, and they’re in a
position to offer a tremendous amount of leadership, I think so.

Interviewer: What kind of leadership?

Mellman: Not just the spiritual needs, but to direct the interest as far as
Jewish education is concerned, as far as fund raising, which is very important
community relations. These are the areas that they can help a great deal,
really.

Interviewer: Why do you suppose that they’re not used, as you say?

Mellman: I rather imagine that to some extent the rabbinate sees the
Federation as an organization which somewhat like an (unintelligible) and perhaps trying to
replace the synagogue or temple in providing the needs of the members of the
various congregations. This doesn’t mean this is true, but this is
how I think the rabbis, to some extent, see the Federation. The Federation has a
very difficult job playing its correct role, really, because it is possible that
the Federation could get out of line; this here depends upon the lay and
professional leadership of the Federation.

Interviewer: How do you think that the Federation views the rabbinate?

Mellman: Well, unfortunately, I don’t believe that the Federation
always sees the rabbinate in its right light. This is probably because an
ongoing situation – I don’t know how to describe the situation
between social workers and the rabbinate, and most of our professional
Federation leaders, our social workers – now this is not necessarily true in
Columbus. I see this as all over the country.

Interviewer: Have you ever noticed the rabbis taking part in policy decisions
such as the distribution of the CJF money?

Mellman: Not really. The rabbis do not because the distribution the money is
always done through careful process by budget committees of the Federation
composed of just members of our community. The ultimate decision on how the
money is distributed is finally approved by the Federation board of directors of
which the rabbis are members of the board of directors, but I have never really
heard of any complaints on the part of the rabbinate on how the funds are
distributed. I believe that they are generally rather satisfied with how the
money is distributed. In all my years of being on the board of the Federation,
and involved in the budgeting process, which has been at least ten or twelve
years, I’ve never really heard of any complaints by members of the
rabbinate on how the funds are distributed.

Interviewer: Do you think if there were to be complaints this would be dealt
with?

Mellman: Oh, yes, I think so. Oh, sure. Anybody that has a
justifiable complaint. I’ve even heard complaints after – this has been done
already by members of our board: we don’t give enough money to
Israel, we don’t give enough money here or there. But, by and large, the
individuals are satisfied that it was handled on a proper basis, and if they
have any particular gripes or complaints they can make them known during the
next year’s budgeting process, really.

Interviewer: When I was at the Wednesday evening meeting…

Mellman: Two or three weeks ago, yes, there were some individuals that spoke
about the fact that not enough money was going for local needs.

Interviewer: Right. I’m wondering with the rabbi. Did you ever hear that spoken
of afterwards or…

Mellman: Now that you bring it up like this – I was thinking that you were
referring to perhaps, let us say, not enough money going to, let us say, Jewish
Center, Jewish Family Service. What Rabbi Klein was referring to was the fact
that more money not raised in our community should go to local needs rather than
overseas; primarily, Israel. Yes, I’ve heard that on many occasions,
and because you have many people that feel very differently about Israel. There
are some individuals that only have a very passive interest on whether Israel
remains a viable state or not, and some people are very…they realize that part
of the money has to go there, but they prefer to see more of their money stay
right within our own community.

Interviewer: Is, for example, Rabbi Klein considered just a small part of the
community that is dissatisfied with the allocations?

Mellman: I would say that Rabbi Klein, and he’s not the only one
that got up to voice that the other day, incidently. This probably represents a
rather small segment of the community because as one who goes out and tries to
raise the money, the story that I hear from most of the people that I speak to,
is they would like to see most of the money go to Israel, even more go to Israel
than is going at the present time.

They feel that the local organizations or
agencies can take care of their own needs, you know, they can find a way, but if
the crisis is in Israel then they feel that they would like to give more support
to it. While the Federation realizes that it has; that is, the local Federation
leadership at the present time, realizes that it needs the local agencies, local
agencies are very, very important, and they have to be dealt with first.

Now, to what extent, there is a difference in distribution of funds, well, then they
take this into very careful consideration because the meeting you attended, the
following week, they tried to find a way to provide a greater base to make more
funds available for local needs to satisfy those people who have some concern
about it. This whole thing would be no problem at all if the people would give
enough money

Interviewer: Thank you, Myer, for sharing our personal life
experiences with the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.