The 7th annual Assembly of the Jewish Agency ended here over the weekend after approving a $350 million budget for the fiscal year 1978-79 and an additional sum of $48 million to implement the first phase of a massive program intended to improve the housing and overall living conditions of some 45,000 poverty families in 160 slum areas around the country.
“The actual needs are for in excess of the proposed budget,” Jewish Agency Treasurer Akiva Lewinsky told the delegates shortly before the four-day session ended. He said that because of the high rate of inflation, the budget in Israel Pounds had to be raised by 55 per cent each year to maintain the same level of activities. He urged diaspora fund-raisers not to be misled by the illusion that because their dollars are worth more in terms of Israeli Pounds that that less money needs to be raised.
Max Fisher of Detroit, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, said “A new spirit has penetrated the Assembly… While there are differences among us, what unites us is the most basic characteristic: Today we are all Zionists.” Fisher observed that “In the previous generations, our enemies did not distinguish between Jew and Jew. Today the United Nations does not distinguish. In the deepest sense we are all Zionists…in this new Zionism there is a role for every single Jew.”
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