Chicago’s 1979 Jewish United Fund-Israel Emergency Fund campaign got off to a record start last Wednesday when 100 of the area’s leading philanthropists pledged a total of $6,935,500, including $1,090,000 for the Project Renewal phase of the drive, earmarked for rehabilitation of the Amishav neighborhood in Petach Tikva. Max Robert Schrayer, 1979 general chairman, said he was tremendously pleased by the large turnout. To accommodate the crowd, the event was held in a pavilion specially constructed at the home of Major Gifts chairman Lester Crown, who with his wife, Renee, hosted the event.
Schrayer and Crown attributed much of the meeting’s success to the appearance of Shimon Peres, former Minister of Defense and leader of Israel’s Labor Party, the keynote speaker. Peres, speaking at a press conference the following day, said he expected a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel to be signed within weeks. The major issues separating the two nations were, he said, “independent matters.” He enumerated them as: the future of the West Bank, the Palestinian problem; future negotiations with Syria and the linkage between those items and the peace process.
Peres stressed that Israel was taking security risks by withdraw drawing its troops and installations from the Sinai, but said he was hopeful that “peace would repay the heavy costs involved,” with the continued indispensable partnership of Jews of the free world. He suggested that the thorny problems of sovereignty on the West Bank could be overcome, but at present Israel has “no serious partner” with whom to negotiate.
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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.
