The 48th national convention of Hadassah concluded here today with the adoption of a $9,838,243 budget for 1962-63 programs in the United States and Israel. Mrs. Siegfried Kramarsky was re-elected national president to a third term.
The convention adopted a resolution calling upon the United States Government “to make it a condition of foreign aid that no country receiving American aid be permitted to engage in economic warfare with other countries receiving similar assistance.” At the same time, the resolution expressed confidence that the United States “will continue its generous aid program to Israel as an important aspect of established American policy.”
The resolution also called upon the United States “to make it unequivocally clear to the Arab states that it will not permit any country to discriminate against American citizens or American business enterprises who do business with Israel, whether this discrimination is in the form of economic blacklisting, the denial of travel permits, or other restrictive acts, in violation of free trade and movement.”
In another resolution, Hadassah recorded its appreciation for the work of the United States Operations Mission in Israel. The activities of the USOM “have contributed materially to the economic, scientific and cultural development of Israel, particularly in the fields of agriculture and industry, and the training of personnel in new skills and techniques,” the resolution stated.
“Hadassah further notes with gratification that American aid to Israel in the form of generous grants and loans has been a material factor in this growth and development, and is gratified that Israel’s economy is now sufficiently stable to receive American aid in the form of repayable loans through the various lending agencies of our government” the resolution declared.
GOLDA MEIR STRESSES ISRAEL’S DESIRE FOR PEACE WITH ARABS
Israel Foreign Minister Golda Meir, addressing the convention, predicted that the time would come “when we will sit around the table and negotiate” with the Arabs. However, she said, until that happens, the only problem facing Israel is “Arab acceptance of the fact that Israel is there and will remain.”
The Foreign Minister told the 2,000 delegates that there was no outstanding problem between Israel and the Arab states that could not be solved “easily and painlessly.” She stressed that “there is nothing Israel wants as much as peace. There is nothing Israel needs as much as peace. With all the bleakness of the desert, the desert of hate around us is more bleak.”
Dr. Miriam K. Freund, former national president of Hadassah and now chairman of the executive of the American Zionist Council, told the session; “The continuing function of the Zionist movement is the need to shape the character of the next generation so that its identification with the Jewish ethos is made more stable. Of course, it is true that the transmission of those values which will root it in Judaism is made more possible because of the Jewish State. However, as Jewish life in the United States becomes strengthened, there will also come a corresponding spiritual strength for Israel.”
Dr. Freund said that “whether Zionism has a future” now that Israel has been established and “whether the Zionist movement and ideology has meaning now in the 1960’s for us American Jews will come out of the thinking and the work of the movement itself.” She said that since American Jewry is the largest and most important Jewry next to Israel itself, “this challenge presents itself most keenly to us.”
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