A 1982 budget of $39.5 Million was adopted by the Board of Directors of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) at its annual meeting here today and Henry Taub, New Jersey businessman and communal leader, was re-elected JDC president for a second one-year term.
Ralph Goldman, who was re-elected JDC executive vice president, reviewed the achievements of JDC in 1981 and reported that more than 500,000 persons had been helped around the world with a total 1981 expenditure of $39,523,000.
In his address Taub spoke of the “opening windows and closing doors of Eastern Europe.” Most gratifying, he said, was the return of the JDC to Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1981 after an absence of 30 years in Czechoslovakia and fourteen years in Poland. Other windows, he said, were opened in previous years in Hungary, Rumania, and Yugoslavia.
“In all,” Taub said, “some 130,000 to 150,000 Jews in East European countries are now back to direct contact with us. On the other hand,” Taub continued, “a great big door has closed. Emigration from the Soviet Union has plummeted from over 4,000 a month to under 400.”
BUDGET ITEMS PRESENTED
The largest item in the 1982 budget of $39.5 million is for relief and welfare which, at $13.7 million, constitutes 37.1 percent of the total. The second largest item in the budget, Jewish education, at $9.4 million is 25.5 percent. Among the other budget items by category are services to the aged, $4.2 million or 11.4 percent, and health services at $3.4 million or 9.2 percent.
A geographic breakdown of the budget shows 30.4 percent or $11.2 million expended in Israel; 23.9 percent or $8.8 million for Relief-in- Transit (largely Eastern Europe); 15.8 percent or $5.8 million in Eastern Europe; 14.4 percent or $5.3 million in Moslem nations and 10.6 percent or $3.9 million in Western Europe. Ninety three cents of every JDC dollar is spent on programs, $36.8 million out of $39.5 million.
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