Ehrlich, Hoffberger Address CJF General Assembly Opening

The emerging problems and opportunities for Israel and for American and Canadian Jewry in the period ahead was the dominant theme last night at the opening plenary session of the 47th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations.

Israeli Finance Minister Simcha Ehrlich told the 3000 North American Jewish leaders assembled here that peace comes at a time when Israel’s economy has reached its coming of age, when it is at a “stage to take off and grow.” Israel, he stressed, is “ready and able to become a business center in the Middle East and the free world, in cooperation with America and other countries by intensifying investments, trade and tourism.”

Jerrold C. Hoffberger, the outgoing president of the CJF, in his keynote address, challenged the Assembly “to achieve wholly new definitions and dimensions of service at home and abroad, to recognize that new and exciting programs must be undertaken within the North American Jewish communities for ‘Jewish renewal’ as well as design new development programs for an Israel at peace. Jewish renewal recognizes that we have entered a new era,” Hoffberger said. “We have moved from a past fraught with peril to a future filled with promise.”

EHRLICH STRESSES INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Ehrlich, without mentioning the peace treaty talks now going on in Washington between Israel and Egypt, focused on the opportunities Israel can offer in the aftermath of peace for business ventures from abroad. Noting that there is “a new world to open up” in Israel, he urged North American Jews “to join us, to participate with us, in the opening of these new worlds.” The Finance Minister asserted that Israel’s government policies are geared toward this end. He pledged an economic policy of government cooperation with foreign business ventures in Israel. “You have our word that we will liberally assist enterprises in becoming established in an economy which is continually growing and offering new opportunities,” Ehrlich said.

During the last year, he observed, Israel “established control of foreign exchange and streamlined the process of investment approval which awards the investor generous financial incentives. We are willing to finance up to 70 percent of export-oriented investment and most of the research and development expenses.” But, he emphasized, “it is not primarily capital of American businessmen that we are after. We need their experience, know-how, technology and marketing channels.”

But the promise of the future was tempered by the reality of the present and the hurdles that must be overcome to provide the arena and base for investment opportunities. “Let us realize that the days of the Messiah have not yet arrived,” Ehrlich said. “It will take a long time to reach the kind of peace which exists between the U.S. and Canada, for example.” During the first years of peace, Israel will still have extremely high defense expenses “but many people here and in Israel will have the feeling that it is all over,” Ehrlich said. But peace will provide new dimensions to life in Israel and to the mutual relationship between Israel and North American Jewry, he stated. The economic prospects for growth, therefore, require a more intense and innovative partnership between Israel and North American Jewry.

PARTNERSHIP DISCUSSED

Hoffberger, in dealing with this situation, stressed that to achieve this partnership American and Canadian Jewry must develop new and bold approaches to communal activities in order all the better to be a full and viable partner with Israel and the coming historic epoch. He said that one of the first steps in this direction is to streamline CJF activities in order to reduce to a minimum all programs that are dead ended or obsolete. “Priorities must be selected with care and set with courage,” he said. “There will be hard choices. On some occasions it may be necessary to override powerful interests. We must have the strength to say ‘no’ and the grace to accept this decision. We must have the vision to say ‘yes’ and the vigor to pursue the right course of action.”

Hoffberger suggested increased understanding and cooperation between the CJF and other national Jewish institutions and organizations in North America, not in order to create a monolith, but to unify Jewish forces and resources. “We must reach out to our colleague organizations in a spirit of shared confidence and good will. Debate and diversity within the private circle of our diaspora; unity and solidarity in confronting the total world.”

In the final analysis, Hoffberger said, CJF programs and activities must take into consideration and make their focal point the fact that Israel, “which has lived on borrowed time and borrowed money can see beyond survival. We have the opportunity to offer them more than a handout. By assuming part of their burden for human development, Israel can concentrate on long neglected economic development. By sponsoring Israel’s internal aliya, we can encourage sabras to stay, captive nation refugees to remain and speed new immigration into the mainstream.” All these elements, he stated, are what constitutes the survival and renewal of Judaism in North America and Israel.