Jewish Agency to Consolidate Work on “project Renewal”

The Jewish Agency Assembly has decided to combine all units of the Jewish Agency dealing with “Project Renewal” into a single, full scale department within the Agency as a means of resolving many of the problems which have bedeviled the massive slum clearance and social rehabilitation project which Israel has undertaken in partnership with world Jewry.

The plan, proposed by Swiss millionaire Nissim Goon, head of the World Sephardi Federation and supported by Leon Dulzin, chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives, was adopted Thursday, the final day of the Assembly’s annual session here. The Assembly also called for “streamlining and simplifying” the bureaucratic procedures involved in “Project Renewal.” Observers predicted intense rivalry over the chairmanship of the new department.

Earlier, Dulzin proposed a separation of powers between the government and the Jewish Agency with respect to “Project Renewal” as a way to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles which have caused delay. He explained, in an interview, that this could be achieved two ways: The Agency could take over exclusive responsibility for a proportion of the 160 slum communities targeted for renewal, including everything from building and rebuilding homes and public institutions to establishing or improving social welfare and community services; or the government could be responsible solely for the building work in the targeted neighborhoods while the Agency would take care of the social and community facilities.

DULZIN PROPOSAL OPPOSED BY YADIN

Dulzin said the proposal was his own at the moment but he was sure it would be endorsed — enthusiastically — by the Jewish Agency and the United Jewish Appeal-United Israel Appeal leaderships.

It was promptly and flatly rejected however by Deputy Premier Yigael Yadin who is the top government official in the sphere of social improvements and rehabilitation. An aide to Yadin said that the present arrangement whereby the Jewish Agency and the various relevant government ministries cooperated under a roof committee was “the best possible” and that Yadin, leader of the Democratic Movement in Premier Menachem Begin’s coalition government, “would under no circumstances” agree to Dulzin’s plan. The Deputy Premier expressed “surprise” that Dulzin had not consulted with him before unveiling his plan publicly.

Dulzin, for his part, stressed that world Jewry’s commitment to “Project Renewal” — a commitment which, in practical terms, calls for an expenditure of $600 million over the next five years — remains firm and unshaken. He said however that the project could not, as had first been thought, produce results within five years. “It is a task for this whole decade,” he said.

Dulzin made his proposal for separate functions against the background of growing unrest among overseas Jewish leaders and communities at the slow progress of “Project Renewal.” This was manifested during the Jewish Agency Assembly. Goon was especially scathing in his attack on the government’s bureaucracy which he felt was holding up the project. Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem spoke in a similar vein although he subsequently modified his criticism of the government in a letter published in the Jerusalem Post. Goon recommended the separate department. Kollek, for his part, urged that local authorities be given a much greater role in implementing the project as opposed to the government and the Jewish Agency.

Dulzin said in his interview that he favored the separate department idea. “But that would not tackle the basic problem,” he contended. He noted that there was a bureaucracy in both the government and the Jewish Agency and that, when they were required to cooperate closely, as they are under the present framework for “Project Renewal,” the bureaucracy is not merely doubled but increased “tenfold.” He said it was for that reason that he proposed a separation of functions.

CITES AGENCY’S SUCCESSES

He said he was confident that he could cut through the bureaucracy at the Agency. “I assemble my department heads around this table and we thrash out the issues,” he told reporters in his office. In the government, on the other hand, there are questions of prestige among the ministers and their ministries which only add to the difficulties, he said.

Dulzin said the Jewish Agency had amply demonstrated over the past few years that it was capable of undertaking a project of this scope. He noted that in a number of towns — Ofakim, Nahariya, Kiryat Motzkin Netivot and else-where — the Agency’s housing company, Amigur, had transformed local neighborhoods from rundown slums into “quality of life” suburbs. He said the Agency’s approach was comprehensive, refurbishing homes, establishing community centers, health centers and other communal services.

In contrast, be claimed, it took a full year for diaspora leaders, those from the U.S. in particular, to persuade the Israeli government that “Project Renewal” was not merely a matter of housing but a comprehensive rehabilitation effort in which the local people must be given a participatory role from the very start and in which every facet of living must be dealt with.

Dulzin argued that the Jewish Agency was thoroughly experienced in the building field, having built some 700 schools around the country through the Education Fund. The actual work is let on contracts which are bid for, and this is how the Agency would approach the building challenges of “Project Renewal” if it were given “say 50” renewal neighborhoods to deal with from start to finish, he said.

PROJECT “ALIVE AND WELL”

The chairman of Project Renewal’s international committee, Jerold Hoffberger, assured reporters last week that the project was “alive and well” despite the bad press it has received. Hoffberger attributed some of the delays to the need to involve local people from the target neighborhoods in the planning and early execution stages. He stressed that this was a vital and positive need but time-consuming.

The debates over Project Renewal at the Assembly attracted groups of demonstrators from the “Ohalim” (tent-dwellers) movement — slum families, mainly Jews of Oriental origin — who have been erecting tent cities on State-owned land to protest the government’s failure to provide them with decent, affordable housing.