A budget of $51,302,000 for 1977, the largest in ORT’s almost 100-year-old history, was approved by the American ORT Federation at its three-day annual conference meeting here at the Hotel Americana this weekend. The budget, approved by the 600 delegates, was presented by Harold Friedman who was re-elected to the presidency of the 150,000 member organization for a third term.
“The increase over the $47,190,000 spent in 1976 provides a larger budget for Israel of over three million dollars and an additional expenditure in France of over a million,” Friedman said. “Almost forty-two million dollars, about eighty percent of ORT expenditures, will be allocated to these two countries.”
Three other countries, of the 25 in which ORT will operate in 1977, Friedman continued, “will be budgeted at approximately a million dollars each–Italy, Iran and Morocco. An additional $1,560,000 will be spent in eight South American and Latin countries, with almost a half of this sum utilized in Argentina.”
Stating the ORT will serve over 75,000 Jews in 1977, of which over 50,000 are in Israel, Friedman stated: “It is a vast program that is exploding in all directions. It is bigger than ever, especially in Israel. We have by no means done all that we should, all that is necessary. We have never had enough money. But we have created a program of schools, of enrichment of life, of equipping over 1-1/2 million pair of hands with the tools of modern technology.”
CARTER PRAISES ORT
Praise for the “humanitarian” program of the American ORT was expressed by President Carter in his first statement to a Jewish organization since his inauguration. In a telegram to Friedman, read at the banquet session, Carter expressed appreciation of the “value and effectiveness” of the ORT program and its plans to “enlarge vocational and technical facilities in the coming year.”
Joseph Harmatz, ORT director for Israel, predicted that two-thirds of ORT’s international enrollment, over 50,000 youth and adults, would be enrolled in ORT’s 86 schools in the Jewish homeland. This represents an increase, he said, over the 47,628 enrollees in 1976. “During the past year.” he said, “four new schools were opened in Israel including two at the college level, the ORT School of Engineering at the Hebrew University campus and another new Teacher Training Institute in Tel Aviv.”
Harmatz introduced Mrs. Bella Kogan, 30-year-old Soviet emigre to Israel, who now teaches at the ORT Vocational School in Kfar Saba, where she lives with her engineer husband and two young sons, one of whom was born in Israel. Harmatz said: “She is one of three hundred Russian emigres now teaching in our schools in Israel. Arriving five years ago, she is a personification of the role ORT plays in the complex absorption process in Israel. She is a living symbol of the more than 100,000 Russian Jews who have settled in the country during the past decade.”
Dr. Vladimir Halperin, of Geneva, director, of the World ORT Union, declared that a series of on-the-spot studies just completed of ORT programs in Latin America, France and Italy indicated a trend of growth and involvement in critical Jewish community problems.
He noted that for the 750,000 Jews who live in Latin America the establishment of ORT programs in the Jewish communities of eight of these countries, most recently in the Jewish day schools of Colombia, Paraguay and Mexico, are major advances in the educational resources of these countries.
SITUATION IN ITALY
Referring to Italy, Halperin stated: “When I think of the thousands of Russian Jews who, on their way to the new world, have spent, are spending or are going to spend several months in transit in Rome, I do not know what mark should be given to us for our programs there, which is carried out under very precarious circumstances. Without ORT, in close cooperation with JDC (Joint Distribution Committee) and HIAS, the financial help of the American government, these migrants would not get any preparation for their new life here in the United States, in Canada or in Australia.”
Halperin announced that in a few weeks, ORT will open a Technical Yeshiva in Toulouse, the first in the history of the Jews of France. Discussing other areas, he noted that in Iran, Morocco and in India “the profile of the Jewish community has radically changed. Our responsibility consists in continuing our efforts, without slackening, even in communities whose numbers have decreased.”
DIPLOMATIC PROBLEMS FOR ISRAEL
Chaim Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations and president of ORT Israel on leave, said he foresaw in the next period troublesome diplomatic situations for Israel both at the UN and in many capitals of the world. He said that Israel is still horrified by France’s action in releasing the PLO leader. Abu Daoud, but expressed satisfaction with the reaction against France that has developed in the United States.
Expressing confidence in Carter, Dr. William Haber, honorary president and for 25 years president of American ORT, said that this year’s ORT national conference meets “in a climate of hope, I can’t help but believe that we have turned the corner.”
While stating that ORT’s major programmatic emphasis will continue in Israel, Haber pointed to the expanding program in France where ORT schools have “been rebuilt, enlarged and updated” as an example of ORT’s adjustment to changing needs. “This has been done,” he continued, “so that the special needs of the several hundred thousand of North Africans, who have emerged from a backward area, can be given an understanding of modern values and the technological skills that will enable them to improve their way of life, whether they remain in France or migrate to Israel.”
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