A $502 million budget for the fiscal year 1976/7 was proposed by the Jewish Agency Executive at its meeting here Monday. The proposal will be presented at a four-day meeting in Jerusalem at the end of next month to be attended by the Agency’s budget and financing committee and the Board of Governors.
The amount, which allows for a deficit of $90 million, is $38 million lower than the current year’s budget. But because immigration in 1975 was considerably lower than expected, only $440 million was actually spent. The Executive also heard a report on fund-raising expectations for the coming year, which indicated that the amount of money raised would be some $90 million less than required. “We will have to make even greater efforts,” Jewish Agency Acting Chairman Yosef Almogi said.
Before the Executive meeting, the Agency’s long-range planning committee formed last year, spent a day looking toward the future. Max Fisher, chairman of the Agency’s Board of Governor said that the aim of the committee–“our think-tank”–was to “try and do an even better job with the money we spend.”
Moshe Rivlin, director-general of the Jewish Agency, said the committee had been established nine months ago and had since met five times. Its members are Almogi, Fisher, Leon Dulzin, Melvin Dubinsky, Frank Lautenberg, Ezra Shapiro and Ra’anon Weitz.
GREAT STEP FORWARD
Two leading Harvard professors of business administration working with the committee have drawn up a preliminary report advocating some changes in budgeting procedures. One recommendation was that budgets should be planned on a three-year basis, instead of annually.
Fisher described the long-range committee as a “great step forward in the Agency.” While he was not critical of past achievements, he hoped that in the future, “we will be even more streamlined.” This was the first time that Almogi, newly elected as chairman, and Fisher had worked together.
Fisher said that he enjoyed the experience and praised Almogi for the “firm, decisive and straightforward way” in which he presided. “I like his style,” he commented. Almogi later returned the compliment, thus auguring well for future cooperation at the highest levels of the Jewish Agency.
OPTIMISTIC ABOUT SOVIET ALIYA
Reporting on the Agency meeting at a press conference, Almogi said the proposed budget had been set higher than the actual figure spent in the previous year because immigration was expected to rise in 1976. Whereas the 1975 total was only about 20,000 (13,000 from the USSR), the forecast for 1976 was 45,000 (35,000 from the USSR and 10,000 from other countries).
Explaining his optimism concerning the increase in Soviet aliya, Almogi said: “The pressure on the Russians from the free world, and even from Communist parties in the free world, will increase. The Russians will not be able to resist such sincere, human pressure. It will not be worthwhile for them to continue their present policy.”
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.
