President Yitzhak Navon welcomed last Sunday’s Cabinet decision approving a plan for cooperation between the Israeli government and diaspora Jewish communities in Project Renewal.
Speaking to the World Zionist Organization Executive here, he said the cooperation would contribute to world Jewish unity and was an important factor in ensuring the success of the project. The meeting Monday was one of the regular sessions of the entire WZO Executive with members from Israel and abroad participating.
Navon congratulated the government for endorsing the cooperation plan worked out by Jerold Hoffberger, chairman of the Jewish Agency’s International Project Renewal Committee, and Yigael Yadin, Deputy Prime Minister. Navon spoke of Project Renewal as a “bold and broad venture.” He urged that the problem of housing for young couples be considered as part of the overall social project, since it was no less crucial and potentially explosive than that of the slum-dwellers whose living conditions Project Renewal will seek to alleviate.
DULZIN PRAISES PROJECT MOVE
WZO chairman Leon Dulzin, at the same session, repeated his call on the government to freeze all building save that for young couples, new immigrants and slum-clearance. “Only millionaires and millionaires children can afford to buy a home,” Dulzin lamented. This situation was hitting hard at aliya, he said, and causing “yerida” (emigration) among young couples.
Dulzin referred to the Cabinet’s Project Renewal decision at another session of the WZO Executive. He said it was “a good decision….But the Cabinet meeting itself was terrible.” He said that what had happened at the Cabinet — mainly the fact that four ministers opposed the decision, four others took no part in the vote, while only six supported the decision — was “very regrettable. We must raise our voice against this non-Zionist meeting of the Cabinet,” Dulzin said.
He praised Premier Menachem Begin for carrying through the cooperation resolution and ensuring that it was passed by the majority.
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