Allon Urges U.S. Jewish Community to Help Israel in the Ingathering of Jews from Oppressed Lands

Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon addressed 350 Jewish leaders from 40 communities in 18 Western states here last night, urging them and the communities they represent to help Israel “live up to our historic undertaking–the ingathering of Jewish people from oppressed lands and the responsibility to make Israel a united society based on ethics and morality.”

Los Angeles was the third stop in Allon’s five-city tour on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal’s $100 million cash mobilization campaign and its 1975 general campaign. The Israeli diplomat is accompanied on his tour by Moshe Rivlin, director general of the Jewish Agency, Frank R. Lautenberg, general chairman of the UJA, and a contingent of UJA national chairmen. The group flew to Chicago today where Allon will address 300-400 Jewish leaders of that city and surrounding communities.

“Israel’s survival is not in question,” Allon declared. “We shall survive spiritually and physically. When we come to the American Jewish community it is to help us live up to our historic undertaking–the ingathering of Jewish people from oppressed lands and the responsibility of making Israel a united society based on ethics and morality,” he said.

Rivlin noted that the beginning of another year of independence must be a time for soul-searching by Jews everywhere. He described the Jewish Agency budget as “a budget of desperation” and called for an accelerated cash flow from the UJA to support Israel’s programs. “We in Israel shall continue to do the impossible if you continue to do the possible,” Rivlin said.

Lautenberg said that “it is a measure of the importance of this occasion that two prominent Israelis have chosen to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day meeting with the American Jewish leadership instead of being with their families and people in Israel.”