A 17-member mission of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds completed today a 10-day study of the use in Israel of emergency funds raised in the United States during and since the June crisis and war and of Israel’s postwar problems and needs.
Some of the mission’s findings were given to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Louis J. Fox. CJFWF president and head of the mission, and Philip Bernstein, the CJFWF executive director. They stressed that after the exhilaration of the June victory, enormous tasks economically and socially remained to be resolved.
The mission studied the nature and causes of Israel’s Joblessness which has averaged more than 30,000 and hit especially younger Israeli workers. The mission members visited about 30 development towns with a population of 250,000 newcomers whose needs, the two leaders said, comprised the bulk of the problems for which American Jewish funds are being used.
Mission members met with Israel Government and Jewish Agency leaders, including Premier Levi Eshkol and Jewish Agency executive chairman A.L. Pincus. They discussed problems of providing education and vocational training for the newcomers and the need to coordinate services to them and to integrate the immigrants more fully into the surrounding urban areas. They also discussed with the Israeli leaders means of preserving fund-raising at the high level of the emergency campaigns not only in the United States but also in Europe, South Africa and South American Jewish communities.
Israeli leaders stressed to the American Jewish officials the primacy of contributions of free dollars. The CJFWF leaders in turn praised the frankness of the Israeli leaders who indicated they wanted not only funds but also advice, including counsel on ways of raising the levels of contributions within Israel itself. The mission examined the use to which the emergency funds were being put in agriculture, housing, higher education, vocational training, health and absorption.
The mission members will report to the CJFWF Board of Directors in September and later to the CJFWF General Assembly which will be held in Cleveland in November. Some members of the mission have left for the return trip to the United States. Others remained in Israel for the current meeting of the World Jewish Communal Workers Conference in Jerusalem.
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.
