Three days of meetings of the Jewish Agency Executive and the Executive’s fund-raising committee attended by leaders from Israel and overseas Jewry ended here Tuesday. The results were summed up by Leon Dulzin, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Executive and Max M. Fisher of Detroit, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors.
Dulzin said decisions were taken in three major areas: the 1974-75 budget; housing for new immigrants and the Jewish Agency’s third General Assembly to be held in Jerusalem June 16-19. Dulzin disclosed that 1000 fewer immigrants arrived in Israel from the Soviet Union during Feb. 1974 than during Feb. 1973. He said there will be 500 fewer this March than in the corresponding month last year. This is a cause for some concern, he said. Nevertheless, the Jewish Agency is planning for an annual aliya of 70,000 this year, half of which would come from the Soviet Union, Dulzin said.
Dulzin reported that top level negotiations between the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government will start next Monday for the Agency to take over the immigrant housing program. He said this meant that the Jewish Agency would exercise control over the building of housing instead of buying existing housing from the government as hitherto. “We have established a housing committee some time ago and we have some of the world’s greatest experts in housing construction on this committee,” Dulzin said.
Fisher reported that the fund-raising committee dealt with the problem of cash flow and decided on a special cash campaign to run between now and the end of June with a target of $350 million. “We are now entering upon a new era: campaigning on a world-wide basis rather than on a national one,” Fisher said. He announced that the Louis Pincus Memorial Fund for Jewish Education has been formally established. The participants are the American Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization and the Israeli government. Dulzin and Fisher will represent the Agency on the board.
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