The spirited and substantial response by American Jewry to the vastly increased humanitarian needs of Israel’s people as a result of the costly “Peace for Galilee” operation is continuing in force, United Jewish Appeal president Herschel Blumberg reported on his return from Israel with the second UJA Special Prime Minister’s Mission.
The mission’s participating leaders from 50 American Jewish communities pledged more than $5 million to the 1983 UJA/community Regular Campaign and Israel Special Fund, an increase of some 63 percent over contributions by the same donors last year.
Mission delegates unanimously endorsed a “Declaration of Intent” introduced by Lee Javitch of Harrisburg, Pa. In it, they pledged to “return to our home communities to assume responsibility to mount a Special Fund campaign, over and above our regular campaigns, that will attempt to raise $200 million for transmittal to the Jewish Agency for the humanitarian programs that the Agency provides for Israel’s people.”
The 1983 UJA/community Israel Special Fund seeks a minimum of $200 million as American Jewry’s share of meeting the costs of health, education, youth care and absorption programs being reassumed by the Jewish Agency from public bodies in Israel. These programs originally were the responsibility of the Agency but had been reluctantly yielded to Israel’s people in the past decade because of shortfalls in funds from annual campaigns. The UJA series of weekly missions to Israel will continue through mid-September, Blum-berg said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
