League for Israel Votes to Provide U.S. “know-how” and Credits to Israel

A resolution providing for the setting up of a committee, in cooperation with other agencies, which will seek to lend American industrial and management skills to Israeli industry was adopted here today at the concluding session of the three-day parley of the American Jewish League for Israel.

Another resolution authorized the president of the League to appoint a commission to develop a plan to provide credit aid to American settlers for housing, small business and industry. The plan is to be submitted by the membership of the organization for implementation no later than November 1958.

The three-day conference, attended by delegates and members from the League’s chapters in various parts of the country, re-elected Ezra Z. Shapiro as president of the organization for another term. The conference voted to help in the promotion of secondary and higher education in Israel sponsorship on a continuing basis of youth pilgrimages to Israel such as the one currently under way by the League and support of United Jewish Appeal and Bonds for Israel.

A highlight of the discussions at the conference was a proposal by Mr. Shapiro for the establishment of one “all-inclusive American Zionist Organization under whose auspices all American Zionist operations should be undertaken and executed.” As presently constituted, Zionist groups in this country tend to reflect ideological differences of Israel’s political parties. The League president’s proposed new organization would be “non-political.”

Efforts to stimulate settlement–“in the best American pioneering spirit”–of American Jews in Israel were urged by Dr. Israel Goldstein, co-chairman of the World Confederation of General Zionists and chairman of the Western Hemisphere Section of the World Jewish Congress. Others who spoke favoring enlargement of an immigration program for Israel were Mrs. Rose Halprin, chairman of the American Section of the Jewish Agency executive and Louis Lipsky, dean of American Zionism, and former chairman of the American Zionist Council.

Mrs. Halprin reviewed the “vast problems” facing world Jewry because of rising Arab nationalism and Middle East conflict. She called for redoubled effort to assure the safe arrival in Israel of thousands of new settlers from countries where they face discrimination and danger. In his address on the prospects for American Zionism, Louis Lipsky urged wide dissemination on the program of the League among Jews so far unaffiliated with and uncommitted to existing Jewish organizations.

Israel Consul General Simcha Pratt, addressing the parley, reviewed Israel’s achievements and cited its desire for peace with Arabs, adding that “Israel’s sovereignty and territory are indivisible. The people of Israel will not agree to any bargaining, nor will they bow to dictation. We are anxious for peace but we want peace to result from freely-conducted negotiations.”