The first full world conference of the Jewish National Fund since Israel’s establishment opened here tonight with 95 delegates from 27 countries plus 26 delegates from Israel in attendance.
The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, last August created a Land Development Authority for joint administration of state and JNF lands under JNF management. The implications of this arrangement will be one of the main items on the agenda of the conference which will also discuss a two-year 50,000,000 pound ($28,000,000) JNF development program.
The Jewish National Fund owns about 3,000,000 dunams of land and another 16,000,000 dunams are state domain development land which will now also be handled by the JNF. Since soil reclamation was started in Jewish Palestine at the end of the 19th Century, about 4,000,000 dunams have been made cultivable, the JNF reported. With present know-how, it was predicted, another 4,000,000 dunams can be made arable within the next 20 years.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
