North American Jewish Students Appeal records, undated, 1962, 1964-1996 (bulk 1971-1995)

The records of the North American Jewish Students Appeal (NAJSA or APPEAL) contains documents on two levels of concern: those documents dealing with the NAJSA as a student-run organization promoting Jewish identity among college-aged youth; and those documents dealing with the APPEAL as a fundraising organization for several well-known student constituent organizations. The Constituents were: the Jewish Student Press Service, Lights in Action, the North American Jewish Students Network, the Progressive Zionist Caucus, Response: A Contemporary Jewish Review, Yavneh Religious Students Organization, and Yugntruf Youth for Yiddish. Documents include correspondence, financial records, minutes, press releases, information on grants awarded to student organizations for programming and publishing, student journals, and newspapers, photographs, and ephemera.Brenda Gervertz, Executive Director,Finding Aid available in Reading Room and on Internet.Identification of item, date (if known); Records of the North American Jewish Students Appeal; I-338; box number/folder number; American Jewish Historical Society at the Center for Jewish History, Newton Centre, MA, and New York, NY.The events leading up to the formation of the North American Jewish Students Appeal (NAJSA or APPEAL) began in May 1969 when the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) sponsored a conference in Brewster, NY. The conference, attended by a collection of students, young adults and student activists, focused on issues concerning the state of Judaism among American youth, organization of the students into a viable movement, and from the student's viewpoint, how to conduct effective and meaningful communications between them and the older generation of the Federations. Out of this conference arose the North American Jewish Students NETWORK, a communications, information and resource arm of the WUJS. As an umbrella service providing information on strategies and tactics through NETWORK, Jewish students and young adults were able to coordinate and plan for organized disruptions at the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Fund's (CJFWF) General Assembly (GA) in Boston from November 12-18, 1969, coinciding with the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the American Federation movement.After the General Assembly, the students were unorganized and unincorporated, had no budget, or central strategy for receiving or allocating funds they might receive from the Federations. The student leaders met at a December 1969 UJA meeting, but were unable to press their efforts to raise funds from the Federations until some semblance of organization occurred. In June of 1971, NETWORK, using its connections through the WUJS, organized meetings with the leaders of the six original Constituents to discuss their varying financial crises and how to organize and present a united fundraising plan to the CJFWF. Those initial Constituents, the Jewish Student Press Service (organized 1970), Response (organized 1967), NETWORK (1969), the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (1964), Yavneh (1965) and Yugntruf: Youth for Yiddish (1965) banded together to form the North American Jewish Students Appeal. The APPEAL disbanded in June 1995 due to the shrinking of Federation funds, the changing structure of the CJF and tensions between the APPEAL and Hillel. As money disappeared from the Federations, the trickle down effect made it difficult for the Federations to justify funding two National student organizations.far0315digitized in par