One hundred thirty-three Jewish leaders from 36 communities throughout the United States pledged a total of $3,287,050 to the regular 1982 United Jewish Appeal/Community campaign, as the first-ever UJA Winter President’s Mission ended in Jerusalem a week ago.
According to UJA national vice chairman Bud Levin of St. Louis, who led the five-day event, that total represents a 33 percent increase over 1981 pledges by the same donors of $2,475,375.
Mission members also pledged an additional $938,185 for Project Renewal, the social, economic and cultural program to rehabilitate Israel’s distressed neighborhoods, raising their total Project Renewal pledges to $2,469,185.
“There may have been a snowstorm raging outside our hotel heavy enough to cancel the last day’s events,” said Levin, “but the gloomy weather did not chill the hearty response of our participants. The graciousness of President (Yitzhak) Navon, who made his way to the hotel through that heavy snowstorm to speak to us, provided its own warmth, and the result was indeed memorable, as was the entire Mission.”
Navon told the Mission participants that when he looked back at the distance Israel had covered in the past 34 years, “I think we — the entire Jewish people — can be proud. Are we capable of surmounting all our problems? Our history of more than three decades proves that we can.”
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MISSION
As a highlight of the Mission, Levin singled out the opening dinner, when participants met with 46 new immigrants from threatened Jewish communities throughout the world and heard moving stories of their lives and experiences.
In response, the Mission members drew up and signed a proclamation, later presented to Navon, in which they resolved “to keep in the public eye the plight of those Jews still in darkness, to continue to express our concern for them in every possible way, to remain unsatisfied until we can spend a similar evening with them when they, too, have become free.”
Mission members visited settlements in the Negev, where Sinai farming families are being relocated by the Jewish Agency, UJA’s major beneficiary. In a special background briefing in Ariel, a settlement on the West Bank, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon told them that Israel would never allow anyone else to defend its eastern boundaries.
Participants toured 22 Project Renewal neighborhoods linked with their home communities to assess progress and strengthen ties. Residents responded with extensive programs of home hospitality. Mission members also visited the homes of prominent Israelis, including Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, Yad Voshem chairman Gideon Hausner and members of the Knesset.
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