A record budget totaling $13,000,000 was approved here today by the national conference of the American ORT Federation. The total, representing an increase of more then $240,000 over last year’s budget, will finance a stepped-up program of vocational and educational services for nearly 50,000 Jews in 21 countries.
Allocations of $3,895,000 toward the total were expected from the United States, with the balance coming from overseas sources. An agreement ratified by the delegates, calling for a grant of $2,100,000 from the Joint Distribution Committee, a member agency of the United Jewish Appeal, will provide the major portion of American funds. Nearly $1,800,000 is expected from the membership income of Women’s American CRT and other affiliated groups.
Dr. William Haber, president of the American CRT Federation, told the more than 500 delegates representing the organization’s 90,000 members across the country that plans adopted for 1967 would make possible the largest enrollment in 650 ORT trade and technical schools in Israel, North Africa, Iran, India, Europe and Latin America since the establishment of American CRT 45 years ago.
Louis Broido, chairman of the JDC, told an evening dinner session, marking the completion of 20 years of JDC-CRT annual financial agreements, that he viewed the $31,500,000 granted to CRT in that period as constituting “an investment in human resources.”
In a message sent to the conference, President Johnson hailed ORT programs for “having opened doors of opportunity to men and women in want. They have provided means of livelihood. They have built confidence within families and fostered progress within communities.” The President particularly lauded the organization for its “pioneering ventures in Africa, joined with the Agency for International Development, as an illustration of the importance of your task. As young people of these new nations are equipped with skills to compete in a modern age, they make this a better world for all its inhabitants,” President Johnson declared.
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