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Responsibility of U.S. Jews to Aid Israel Stressed As UJA Begins 1970-71 Campaign

October 9, 1970
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“The people of Israel cannot and should not be asked to carry any part of the responsibility which is really ours,” Edward Ginsberg, general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal said yesterday in a message to the UJA’s executive committee meeting here to plan the agency’s 1970-71 campaign. “The people of Israel are sacrificing themselves, their youth, their resources and their economy in a tenacious determination to survive.” Mr. Ginsberg said. “Almost all tax revenue is spent on defense, and the taxes paid by the people of Israel have long been the highest in the world. Just recently, they voted even greater taxes on themselves, proclaiming their determination that they will pay the price for survival, no matter how costly it may be.” Mr. Ginsberg said that American Jews “have a traditional responsibility to support life-saving and life-sustaining programs” in Israel for new immigrants, for the aged and infirm “as well as vocational and higher education opportunities for Jewish youth and adults. We must meet that responsibility with strength and courage.” He added that as the Jews face the New Year “we must meet the crisis with equal determination” because the survival of the Jewish people in Israel “depends on us. Survival means sacrifice. They (the Jews in Israel) measure their sacrifices in blood. We are only asked to sacrifice substance.”

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