Keren Hayesod-uia Achievements

The Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal raised $162.3 million in the fiscal year April 1974-April 1975, its director-general Shimshon Yaacov Kreutner announced here yesterday, He said this represented a significant achievement in that the sum was more than half that raised during the previous year, which was the year of the Yom Kippur War emergency campaign.

In the 1968-69 year, by comparison, Keren Hayesod had managed to raise only between one-quarter and one-third of what it raised in the previous year, the year of the Six-Day War emergency campaign. During an emergency campaign occasioned by actual war or its immediate aftermath, Kreutner said, people give “as though they will never give again.” Keren Hayesod-UIA operates in 70 countries and is the main fund-raising body for Israel outside of the U.S., where the United Jewish Appeal operates independently.

Asked to compare Keren Hayesod’s results to those of the UJA, Kreutner stated that in the calendar year of 1974 Keren Hayesod’s cash income was $167.3 million while that of the UJA was $222,5 million, He pointed out that some six million Jews live in the U.S. under UJA’s ambit of operations, while only some 2,5 million Jews altogether live in the 70 countries in which the Keren Hayesod operates.

The Keren Hayesod estimate for the new fiscal year–April 1975-April 1976–was in the order of $160 to $180 million despite the recessionary economic situation still affecting most Western economies, Kreutner stressed that all of his figures were in terms of actual cash income.

COMMUNITIES’ RESPONSE TO APPEALS

Asked to grade Jewish communities in order of their response to Keren Hayesod fund-raising efforts, Kreutner noted that British Jewry had surpassed all estimates during the wartime appeal. Second in order of merit was South Africa, he said, followed by Switzerland (the German-speaking part), Canada, West Germany, Belgium, and Australia which had made great strides forward of late.

Kreutner said estimated operating expenses for Keren Hayesod in the coming year would be IL 24 million, only about two percent of estimated income. He stressed that Keren Hayesod fundraising was based on the work of local leadership which was aided and guided by the head office in Jerusalem. In at least two centers, Antwerp and German-speaking Switzerland, there were virtually no overheads, all the work being done voluntarily.

Kreutner said Keren Hayesod asked its fund-raisers, whether professionals, Israeli dignitaries or local lay leaders, to stress the true situation in Israel, neither whitewashing the real picture nor painting it in exaggeratedly gloomy colors. If aliya was down–as it is at present–the Keren Hayesod campaigning centered on Israel’s pressing social, health and educational needs which the government, overburdened by defense expenditure, could not meet alone.

PRAISE FOR ‘STUDY MISSION’ PROGRAM

Kreutner had warm words of praise for the success of the Keren Hayesod “study mission” program which brings parties of overseas Jews to Israel for short and intensive study tours to familiarize them at first hand with the country’s problems, During the 1974-75 year, there were 55 such missions, 19 from Britain, nine from Canada, and seven from France and the rest from other communities, Participants made their pledges on the spot, and when they returned home became active in drawing pledges from others.

Kreutner said that modern fund-raising required efficient professional techniques. Keren Hayesod therefore held study days throughout the world during the past year at which lay and professional fund-raisers studied “the psychology of face-to-face fund-raising” with Prof. Arye Nosher of the Haifa University psychology department, Kreutner also underlined Keren Hayesod’s efforts to attract young professionals and businessmen into its “young-leadership” cadres and its work to set up separate women’s sections alongside all the major campaigns.

He said that in some outlying Jewish communities, such as the Caribbean or Rhodesia, Keren Hayesod comprised virtually the sole consistent year-round Jewish activity which embraced-most of the Jewish populace.