Mayor Abraham D. Beame today proclaimed May “UJA-Federation Month” in New York City and called for a generous response to mass solicitation efforts that will climax a drive by the Jewish community of the city and suburbs to raise $280 million to meet human needs in Israel, in danger and distress zones for Jews overseas and here in New York.
Formal signing and issuance of the proclamation took place during a reception the Mayor tendered in City Hall’s Blue Room to Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, world spiritual leader of Sephardi Jewry who is visiting New York this week under the sponsorship of the American Sephardi Federation and the Sephardi Leadership Council of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York.
The Mayor’s proclamation was presented to former Congressman Herbert Tenzer. chairman of a special mass campaign in support of the Israel Emergency Fund and coordinated campaigns of the UJA of Greater New York, and Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. Among the leaders of New York’s Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish communities who witnessed the ceremony were Federation President Lawrence B. Buttenwieser and New York UJA President Laurence A. Tisch.
Tenzer described the effort he heads as an attempt to carry the message of the Israel Emergency Fund and coordinated UJA-Federation campaigns to every one of an estimated 800,000 Jewish households in the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Reporting that some $160 million has already been raised, Tenzer said the coordinated UJA-Federation campaigns would have to reach far more than the 200,000 or so Jewish families already reached.
PLANS FOR CAMPAIGN DESCRIBED
Beame urged “all men and women of good will whatever their faith, to join their Jewish fellow citizens” in wholehearted cooperation and prompt and generous giving to the UJA-Federation mass campaign “in the critical weeks ahead.”
Plans for the mass campaign, announced by Tenzer, call for a series of rallies for Jewish survival to mobilize volunteer workers and contributors, seven of which have already been scheduled. Other planned activities include a 10-day “dial-a-thon” telephone solicitation beginning June 4, participation in the “Salute to Israel” Journeys affording contributors to the campaign an opportunity to observe personally the humanitarian programs financed in Israel by the Israel Emergency Fund and coordinated UJA-Federation campaigns. Groups will depart from JFK International Airport on May 13, June 10 and July 15.
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