204 Delegates from 24 Countries Will Attend Conference on Israel’s ‘human Needs’

An international Conference on Human Needs in Israel will open here next week with the participation of 204 representatives of major fund-raising bodies in the United States and 23 other countries. The conference will be held under the patronage of Premier Golda Heir. Invitations to the delegates were issued by Louis A. Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency, Deputy Premier Yigal Allon will preside at the early sessions as Acting Premier in the absence of Mrs. Meir who will be visiting London next week. She is scheduled to address the closing session of the gathering next Thursday.

Moshe Rivlin, director general of the Jewish Agency, said at a press conference today that the parley is designed to present to the fund-raisers a comprehensive, documented picture of what is being done in Israel in the fields of health, social welfare, education, higher education, agricultural settlement, housing and related subjects. He said that Israel’s need for assistance in these areas has increased since the originally planned conference date in 1967 prior to the Six-Day War. Mr. Rivlin noted that until the war, Israel had borne two-thirds of the cost of immigration and absorption but had to assume a much larger defense burdens afterwards. He said the Israel Emergency Fund campaigns throughout the world in 1967 and 1968 had changed the ratio of the social needs costs borne by Israel but not sufficiently.

Mr. Rivlin said that the United States was sending the largest delegation comprising 132 delegates representing such organizations as the United Jewish Appeal, federation and welfare boards and the bodies which raise funds for such Israeli institutions as Histadrut, the Haifa Technion and others.

The other 23 countries are sending 72 delegates, with the largest single group, 17, from Britain. Mr. Rivlin said the conference’s main work will be done in committees, each with the participation of an Israeli Cabinet Minister in charge of a particular field. Plenary sessions will be addressed by Deputy Premier Yigal Allon who heads the Ministry for Immigrant Absorption; Foreign Minister Abba Eban; Minister of Finance, Industry and Commerce Zeev Sharef; and Mr. Pincus. Mr. Rivlin announced that the various working committees will be chaired as follows: Agricultural settlement. Isador Magit of Australia and Rabbi Isadore Breslau of the U.S.; fund-raising, Michael Sacher and Gordon Sacks, both of London; development towns, Louis Stern of the U.S. and Nissim Gaon of Switzerland; education and culture, Ernst Weil of Switzerland and Moritz Sherman of West Germany; higher education, Charles G. Bensley of the U.S. and Mrs. Fella Perlman of Belgium; health, Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson of the U.S. and David Sabaj of Uruguay; housing, Jack D. Weiler of the U.S. and Abraham Rad of Iran; manpower, Paul Zuckerman of the U.S. and Louis D. Harris of Canada; social welfare, Mrs. Inge Gottfarn of Sweden and Morris L. Levinson of the U.S.

The conference will hold a closed session with Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Chaim Bar-Lev. The closing speeches will be delivered by Edward Ginsberg, general chairman of the UJA, and Judge I.A. Maisels of South Africa.