Five-member Agency Committee to Check Multiple Campaigns Starts Functioning

The Jewish Agency central licensing committee, which is empowered to either permit or prohibit the raising of funds abroad for Israeli institutions and to check any fund-raising activities conducted in the United States and in other countries on behalf of Israel, started functioning today.

The committee, which was formed after consultations with the Israel Government and with representatives of Jewish relief and welfare organizations, including the Joint Distribution Committee, is composed of five members of the Jewish Agency executive. They are: Dr. Itzhak Gruenbaum, Meir Grossman, Eliahu Dobkin, J. Zerubavel and S.Z. Shragai.

In a statement issued to the press, Mr. Dobkin today explained the reasons which prompted the Jewish Agency to establish such a body. He emphasized that much harm has been done in the United States by the separate drives conducted on behalf of various institutions in Israel. At least 120 such drives have been conducted this year in America, he said.

Mr. Dobkin attacked the ORT and the OSE declaring that while these organizations have hitherto worked outside of Israel, they now claim to be doing seventy percent of the work which is actually being done by the Jewish Agency. The licensing committee, he stated, is fully empowered to consider any application of any public institution trying to raise funds in countries outside of Israel for work in Israel.

The committee will also have the right to approve and control small collections raised in any country for any kind of work in Israel, he added. It can prohibit certain collections and it can study the balance sheets of any collection, he pointed out. Ellis Radinsky, director of the United Palestine Appeal who has been here for about three weeks conferring with the Agency, today explained to newsmen the relationship between the U.P.A. and the United Jewish Appeal in America.