Six thousand youths from overseas took part this year in the Jewish Agency’s youth and halutz department summer program. Avraham Katz, department head, reporting this to the World Zionist Organization Executive, noted that the figure represented a 20 percent drop compared to 1979. This was due, he said, to budgetary considerations which had forced the department to cut back its program.
Katz pressed for an increase in his department’s budget to enable it to take in more applicants for its summer programs. These programs include touring the country, seminars on subjects of Jewish and Zionist interest, visits to army camps, lectures from officers and tours of battle sites.
A number of Executive members supported Katz, but treasurer Akiva Levinsky said he saw no reason why the WZO should subsidize Jewish organizations abroad in order to encourage them to send their youth here. He maintained that the overall figures of youth group visitors had not dropped this year, since many had come in different frameworks — 2000, for instance, under the auspices of the Jewish National Fund.
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