(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
With the adoption of a budget approaching $3,000,000 for the coming year’s Palestine work, the Zionist General Council closed its sessions here early Tuesday morning. Before adjournment the Council decided to despatch a cable appealing to all factions of American Zionism to seek unity in the coming work. The next session will be called either in March or April, 1929, to be held in Jerusalem. A message was received from Lord Balfour expressing his thanks for the congratulations of the General Council on the occasion of his eightieth birthday celebrated last week.
The budget of £527,200 Sterling, proposed by the Zionist Executive, was increased to £569,200 as the result of a resolution introduced by Messrs. Kaplansky, Twerski and Dizengoff.
The budget is to be allocated in the following way: agricultural colonization £115,000; experimental station £10,000; commerce and industry £5,700; labor, including the deficits of the Tarbuth and Solel Boneh, £14,200; immigration £15,655; education (not to be diminished) £60,300; Mizrachi education £2,000; Mizrachi religious work £2,000; Haifa Technicum £1,500; Hadassah medical work £90,200; Kuppath Cholim medical work for labor £13,400; health department £850; special expenditures £2,000; administration £18,000; interest £4,500; covering of deficit £70,000; Keren Hayesod budget £38,000; Keren. Hayesod interest £5,500; Keren Hayesod debts, £79,245; London debts £5,000; London budget £15,000.
Miss Henrietta Szold, honorary president of the American Hadassah and member of the Jerusalem Zionist Executive, made a moving plea against cutting the budget of the Hadassah medical work in Palestine.
Theodor van Friesland read a declaration on behalf of the Jerusalem Executive, expressing the hope that the Zionists throughout the world, by united action and effort, will increase the income of the Zionist funds. Failing that, the increase in the budgets will be made only in proportion with the income. Mr. Van Friesland is the treasurer of the Jerusalem Executive.
With regard to immigration the Zionist General Council instructed the Executive to ask the Palestine government for the grant of 1250 labor immigration certificates, with an additional 750 certificates as a reserve. The Council adopted the resolution of the political commission urging the Palestine government to annul the 1927 ordinance amending the immigration ordinance of 1925, whereby greater restrictions upon immigration to Palestine were imposed.
Dr. Selig Brodetsky, professor at the University of Leeds, one of the leading English Zionists, was elected to the London Zionist Executive, succeeding Dr. M. D. Eder, who retired recently. Engineer Schocken, Berl Katzenelson, labor leader, and Mr. Sauchwitzky were elected to the Board of Directors of the Jewish National Fund.
In his closing address, Dr. Leo Motzkin who presided over the sessions declared that the deliberations of the Zionist General Council demonstrated that the Zionist movement is an idealistic power in Jewish life. “Notwithstanding our differences of opinion, the General Council carried on the discussions on a high level and disposed of a number of perplexing and highly important problems,” he said, appealing to the Zionists to make every effort necessary for the raising of the budget adopted.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
