A budget of $45,465,000 for 1976, the largest in ORT’s history was approved today by the American ORT Federation at the conclusion of its three-day 1976 annual conference here at the Hotel Americana.
This almost 10 percent increase over the $41,539,000 spent in 1975. it was reported by Harold Friedman, who was re-elected president of the 140,000-member organization for a second term, reflects primarily the greatly enlarged responsibilities of the ORT program in Israel. Considerable increase in the numbers served, plus the opening of additional facilities and the difficulty of the government to absorb more educational costs were pointed to as reasons for a $3 million increased budget for ORT Israel in 1976 over last year.
Friedman said the program in France has expanded as well, and that there is also the necessity of gearing for longer range services for Soviet Jews in the ORT program in Rome. He noted a trend of rising student enrollment in practically all of the 24 ORT country programs, This is further accentuated, he said, by harsh inflationary pressures, which in Israel run at about 35-40 percent annually, which has a severe impact on the ORT budget.
RETRAINING NORTH AFRICAN JEWS
Friedman also noted that $12,021,100 will be spent in France for the retraining of the North African Jews who have settled there. Six thousand students are currently enrolled in ORT technical and training programs from among the 300,000 North African Jews who have migrated there in the last decade. “In all,” he stated “some 90 percent of the ORT budget will be spent in these two countries this year.”
He told the 700 delegates attending the conference that “crisis is no longer a one-time thing in Jewish life, rather it has become the nature of the age. These are not merely ORT problems. They are at the very center of Jewish concern at this time.”
ORT’s continuing relationship with the Joint Distribution Committee for over 50 years was recalled by Ralph I. Goldman, new executive vice-chairman of the JDC, who pointed out that JDC has made grants to ORT during that period of about $60 million, which includes $3,600,000 for 1976.
URGES PROGRAM TO INTERPRET ISRAEL
Elmer Winter, president of the American Jewish Committee, urged American Jewry to adopt a full-scale program of interpretation of Israel to the American community that clearly places the blame for continued Middle East turmoil and conflict on the Arab states. This, he said, should be done by American Jews in their “day to day relationships with our Christian friends, with our political candidates, our Senators, our Congressmen and with our friends in business organizations and social clubs.”
Reviewing ORT’s past, and looking into the future, Dr. William Haber, American ORT president for 26 years until his retirement last year, and who was re-elected honorary president this weekend, said that ORT has materially changed in the past 25 years. He noted that ORT is now more concerned, with higher education. He was particularly pleased and proud that a new ORT School of Engineering will open at the Hebrew University later this year.
Describing the South African Jewish community of 118,000 people, Bash Wunsh, vice-president of the 7500-member South African ORT, said that there is no overt anti-Semitism in the country but that its Jews are greatly concerned with problems of assimilation of its youth. To counteract this erosion the community sustains a growing Jewish day school movement which has a current registration of over 30 percent of the Jewish school population, Wunsh stated.
Alvin Gray, Cleveland attorney who is a former president of the Cleveland Men’s ORT, and a member of its national executive committee and associate chairman of its national organization committee, received the medallion as the 1976 “ORT Man of the Year.” He was honored “for his manifold leadership at community, national and international levels, and for his all around service as well as in appreciation of the caliber of the man and the talents he has brought to his ORT work.”
President Ford, in a message to the conference, praised ORT for its expansion of “vocational programs in order to train young workers for productive jobs in Israel.”
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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.
