Sweeping recommendations to finance Hebrew education and to meet the imperiled budget of the South African Jewish community for Jewish education were contained in the report of a special commission released today.
The commission was established in 1960 under the chairmanship of Judge Simon Kuper. It includes representatives of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the Zionist Federation and the Board of Jewish Education.
The commission recommended that the Jewish Agency should be asked to allow the Israel United Appeal to finance the 500,000-pound capital program of Jewish day schools in South Africa and that the buildings should belong to the Agency until they were either redeemed or sold.
The commission also proposed that the Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation reduce present expenditures on youth work to provide more money for Hebrew education and that the Zionist Federation should take over fund-raising for the Board of Education which currently runs its own campaigns.
The commission estimated its recommendations could save the Board of Education 23,000 pounds out of a 126,000-pound annual budget and that the balance in the board’s deficit could be financed through the subsidy which the Board of Education received from the United Communal Fund and through continuation of the present education fund campaign.
The Zionist Federation at the same time released a statement saying that the report had been discussed at a lengthy federation meeting which was attended by representatives from various South African provinces and that the meeting decided to refer the report to the next South African Zionist Conference in August.
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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.
