With indications that immigration to Israel could rise to 35,000 in 1979 if a peace treaty with Egypt is signed, Max Fisher, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, called for a renewal of support for the United Jewish Appeal campaign as part of a strategy to successfully absorb new olim.
“With the people of Israel confronting new expenses and budget cuts in education and social welfare next year, world Jewry has an obligation to assure that the Jewish Agency can handle the increasing number of Soviet Jewish immigrants and potential olim from Iran,” Fisher explained on the eve of UJA’s 40th anniversary conference, which launches nationally the 1979 campaign here next week.
Fisher said he will review contingency plans for absorbing a potential exodus of Jews from Iran, as well as new measures for receiving Soviet Jews, in meetings with Leon Dulzin, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, Agency Treasurer, Akiva Lewinsky and American Jewish communal leaders Jerold C. Hoffberger, Frank R. Lautenberg, Irwin S. Field, Melvin Dubinsky and Robert Russell.
“If there are unsolved problems in immigrant absorption, and if there are unconquered pockets of poverty in Israel, we must bring together the resources and talent of our leadership,” Fisher said. “This means that our peacetime war on poverty, Project Renewal, must go forth simultaneously with the 1979 UJA campaign, if we are not to erode our human gains while preparing for a possible new wave of immigration.”
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