Jewish Agency Reorganization Mapped by Inter-party Committee

Recommendations of an inter-party committee on the reorganization of the Jewish Agency were presented at a meeting of the executive today, but were not discussed. They will be discussed after the return from the United States of Aryeh L. Pincus, the Agency’s chairman, who is leaving for New York this Thursday.

The recommendations include the creation of a new post, called “Chairman of Committee Responsible for the Department’s Sphere of Activities.” Each department will also have a head of the department. The head of the department will be responsible for day-to-day activities, while the committee chairman will deal with matters of general policy and the broader aspects of the department’s activities. In some of the departments, the head and the committee chairman will alternate positions at the end of every year. However, administrative streamlining is to be carried out, and each department will have a single director.

In addition to the head and the chairman, each department will have one or two additional members drawn from the overall Agency executive. The distribution of departments, with the departmental head named first, then the committee chairman, will be as follows: Finance, Aryeh L. Pincus, J. Klarmann; Youth and Hechalutz, Mrs. T. L. Lubetkin, E. Dobkin; Organization, Information and External Relations, Z. Lurie, H. Levanon; Keren Hayesod, Dr. Israel Goldstein, W. Perry.

The inter party committee recommended that the immigration authority, including the departments of immigration, absorption and economic affairs, will have three heads. One will be the departmental head, another will be the committee chairman, and one will be stationed abroad. The three will rotate. These three are S. Z. Shragai, L. Dulcin and A. Tsygel.

No decision has as yet been made for the committee chairmen of the departments of Youth Aliyah and Settlement. The heads of these departments, unchanged, will be Y. Artzi and Dr. R. Weitz. The Education and Torah Education departments will probably not have an executive committee; their heads, unchanged, will be Y. Harcavi and D. Beitarye.

Mapam abstained in the voting on this reshuffle. Herut opposed the plan and issued a statement against it. Y. Korn, of Ihud Olami, chairman of the interparty committee that recommended the plan, said that, while the plan was not perfect, it was the only possible solution under the existing coalition. He said this plan will be in effect until the next Zionist Congress, which may elect a smaller executive with fewer departments.