Labor Israel Campaign Gets $1, 000, 000 at Mid-winter Conference

A million dollars in cash was presented here today at the mid-winter conference of the National Committee for Labor Israel, at the Hotel Commodore, in the first phase of the 1963 Israel Histadrut Campaign. A roll call of delegations representing scores of communities and hundreds of Jewish and labor organizations was conducted by Dr. Sol Stein, national executive director of the campaign. Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein, national chairman, presided over the conference.

Two special representatives of Histadrut addressed the conference–Mayor Joseph Levy of Eilat, and Dov Barnir, Hebrew Journalist and member of the First Knesset. Mayor Levy reported that Eilat, would increase its population threefold in the next four years, from 8, 500 to 25, 000. He noted that Eilat was becoming a major tourist attraction as well as an important sea link between Israel and the Far East and East Africa, bypassing the Suez Canal which is closed to Israel shipping.

Mr. Barnir, completing a six-week coast-to-coast lecture tour, told the conference that “the importance of Histadrut in the construction of Israel is still widely underestimated among many members of the American Jewish community. They must be informed about the facts: without Histadrut there would have been in Palestine no agriculture, no industry, no self-defense, no pioneering effort in a backward country devoid of experience and natural resources. ” Zalman Shazar, head of the education and cultural department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem, also addressed the conference.

Dr. Stein announced the establishment of an Educational Department that would seek “to clarify the affinity between American Jewry and Israel, and present the ideals of Histadrut as the twentieth century mission of our people, a mission in which American Jewry can find its fulfillment while enriching its American heritage. ” Dr. Judd L. Teller, well-Known author and lecturer, has been named director of the department.