The Jewish National Fund’s fund-raising goals and the agency’s needs for 1986 amount to some $10 million, JNF executive vice president Samuel Cohen told some 200 persons attending the organization’s national conference here Sunday.
“This is what is needed for the Keren Heyemeth to maintain its lifeline of operations this year for the people of Israel,” said Cohen in an address to the morning plenary session, part of an all-day conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
Three specific areas of development to be aided by the JNF this year, according to Cohen, are the afforestation of some 1,250 acres of land in Israel; the acquisition of some 12,000 dunams for agricultural development, and aid for the construction of access roads of some 300 to 500 miles in the Negev and Galilee.
“In 1986, we are expected to do the impossible,” Cohen declared. “We are expected to deliver … an amount far in excess of what we have delivered in the past.” He said the goal of $10 million was “without any embellishments.”
JNF treasurer Charlotte Jacobson provided delegates with a brief review of the JNF’s financial status in the past fiscal year, which concluded September 30. She pointed to various increases in fund-raising efforts by the agency over the previous year and expressed hope that “every single year we should be able to send to Israel $1 million more.”
At the morning session, two checks–one for $1 million and the other for $500,000–were presented to Moshe Rivlin, world JNF chairman, to support major projects in Israel. The JNF is the organization responsible for afforestation and land reclamation in Israel.
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