Special to the JTA Sapir Calls for Doubling Israel’s Population in Twenty-five Years

“Unless we double our Jewish population over the next twenty-five years, I fear for the future of the State of Israel,” Pinhas Sapir told the Planning Conference for American Aliya yesterday. Speaking to almost 300 people from 23 states and 55 cities, from 30 Jewish organizations, Sapir, chairman of the World Zionist Executive and of the Jewish Agency, pointed out that in the first 25 years of statehood, Israel’s Jewish population grew from 600,000 in 1948 to almost three million — a five-fold growth.

“But Israel,” he said, “Is not five times as strong today as she was when statehood was declared but twenty or more times as strong: strength increases proportionately much faster than numbers; quantity effects quality as well.” Responding to questions at the end of the think-tank sessions, Sapir pointed out that aliya is no less a determinant of Israel’s future than is her army.

Sapir made an impassioned appeal for a major aliya from the United States and challenged the American Jewish community to “take on the burden of stimulating a creative aliya from North America.” He noted, in agreement with Moshe Dayan, that Israel is closer to peace today than ever before because there are more Jews there,

Affirming that Israel has been “as responsive as we can be to some of the valid criticisms about our processes of absorption,” Sapir insisted that Israel was offering “neither heaven nor haven, but a front line position in trouble and triumph, in nation-building, Calling for new directions, Sapir pledged “a respectful response” to new ideas, new approaches, and even new organizational structures to further aliya.

CONFERENCE TERMED HISTORIC, INNOVATIVE

The tone of the two-day meeting was set by Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, chairman of the American Section of the WZO, on Saturday night, when she called the conference “historic” in that it had taken upon itself the task of determining how to make aliya into the “number-one topic on the American Jewish agenda.” The conference was innovative in that it was convened, on the initiative of Sapir, with no preconceived solutions, and dispensed with the usual array of glittering personalities and the customary galas and banquets.

Instead of the movement faithful, there was a reaching-out to a cross-section of American Jewry, individuals selected from the ranks of Jewish Federations, Jewish community centers, synagogues, B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, ORT Young Leadership of the United Jewish Appeal and Youth groups, the Council of Jewish Women and all of the Zionist organizations. There were many new faces — from Houston, Texas and Des Moines, Iowa and California, Maine, Oregon and Missouri.

There was general prior agreement on two points: the importance of aliya, and the need to put the cause of aliya from North America into the hands of the American Jewish community. Opening the sessions yesterday morning, Mrs. Jacobson pointed out that the challenge was to make American Jews understand that aliya was one of the choices they could make, adding that if the conference generates the enthusiasm and the effort hoped for and leads, ultimately, to an “American wave of aliya,” it will have been, indeed, a historic conference.

NEED FOR “PEOPLE-RAISING”

Five general propositions for “discussion” were offered by David Levinson, of St. Louis, who called for “people-raising.” it is necessary he said, to develop American initiative for “people-raising, just as we developed it for fund-raising,” Pointing out that aliya from the West is no longer a luxury but a necessity, Levinson declared that “heroic solutions to yesterday’s problems cannot solve those of today.”

Aliya must be a joint venture, he insisted, a real partnership: we cannot have the money coming from one partner, and the work from the other; both must share in the effort, and we must begin developing concrete programs, such as the organization of talent or skill for joint aliya, and a recruitment program, using all the techniques developed by American management-recruitment concerns. Levinson also called for the organization of a special program committee functioning on an ongoing basis, to develop new techniques and new programs,

A young Columbia University senior, Mark Shulman, announced that a Student Mobilization for Israel had been established, following the United Nations invitation to terrorist leader Yassir Arafat, with a three-point program: political action on behalf of Israel, recruitment of volunteers for Israel, and aliya. The students established an Aliya Corps already numbering some 500 youths committed to making, aliya. Shulman himself will be making aliya this June; upon his graduation from the university.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION

The bulk of the morning session was devoted to concurrent workshops assigned to respond to the formal presentations and make concrete recommendations for action following the conference.

The consensus of the workshops, as reported by Dr. Judah J. Shapiro, president of the Labor Zionist Alliance, endorsed the proposal by Sapir and Mrs. Jacobson to develop regional or city councils for aliya — involvement of all the existing Jewish organizations in the effort — not in an advisory capacity, but functionally and operationally.

Creation of an Executive Council was called for, to work out details for the regional bodies and their relationship to existing bodies, and to develop a time-table, procedures, and staff requirements. The workshops stressed the importance of maintaining contact with olim to support their absorption, and called for attention to what Dr. Shapiro termed “temporary aliya” as a step towards total commitment.

Participants felt that aliya must be considered a mandate for the Jews of North America, requiring an idealistic commitment to Israel. One of the important themes sounded, over and over, was the funding problem: many would-be olim simply lacked the funds to make aliya, Finally, Dr. Shapiro reported a commonly felt need for researching the very important problem of olim who don’t “make it,” but return to the U.S. Why? What were the elements which led them to return? What changes are needed in Israel to make retention of olim effective?

“TODAY IS YOM GADOL”

Sapir himself referred to the revolution in the housing situation — and elimination of housing as a problem for olim; the improvement in the atmosphere in which olim are absorbed socially, thanks to the efforts of Israeli groups and individuals, and some of the experimental approaches being taken to settle gar’inim (nuclear groups) from the U.S.

“Today is a yom gadol, a big day, perhaps even a historic day — depending on whether you follow up this conference,” Sapir concluded. “We want to see you responsible for aliya. I want you to have sleepless nights over aliya, Then we will get results.”