A goal of $7,000,000 for 1965 was set at the concluding session of the 41st annual convention of the National Committee for Labor Israel today at the Hotel Commodore. The two thousand delegates from all parts of the United States and Canada resolved to raise $5,000,000 in cash for the Israel Histadrut Campaign and $2,000,000 in long-term commitments for the American Histadrut Development Foundation.
The cash funds will be applied during the coming year toward the immediate implementation of a wide range of medical, cultural and welfare activities in Israel, including a special sum of $500,000 for 2,000 vocational training scholarships for teen-age youth. The Foundation, which has accumulated commitments of $5,300,000 in wills, bequests and insurance policies, will give basic financing toward projects envisaged during the coming decade.
Dr. Sol Stein, the committee’s executive director, told delegates that during this year $3,488,000 had been raised to establish new institutions to aid newcomers to Israel. In a message to the convention, Israel Prime Minister Levi Eshkol extolled “the direct bond between scores of thousands of friends of Histadrut in the United States and Canada, who are linked organizationally and spiritually to the pioneering labor movement in Israel.”
President Johnson, in a message to the delegates, lauded the efforts “to encourage the development of a democratic state characterized by a strong and free trade union movement, declaring that efforts of “Histadrut, in Israel have been in keeping with the American belief that free men everywhere have mutual ideals and aspirations. Israel,” the President said, “has become an example in the ways of free society to the emerging nations of the world.”
Speakers at the convention included Israel Ambassador Avraham Harman, A. Philip Randolph, international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Louis Hollander, vice-president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, Howard J. Samuels, chairman of the American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute, Itzhak Ben Aharon, leader of Histadrut in Israel, and others. Dr. J.L. Teller, executive vice-chairman of the American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute, said that “the roots of labor ideology in Israel are imbedded in the centuries-old tradition and experience of the Jewish people. Mutual aid institutions among Jews go back centuries, giving validity to Jewish concepts which make society responsible for the least of its members.”
Joseph Schlossberg, 90-year-old dean of the Jewish labor movement, was re-elected president of the National Committee for Labor Israel and Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein of Chicago, was named national chairman. Moe Falikman, vice-president of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, was re-elected national treasurer; Charles S. Zimmerman, chairman of the board of directors; Dr. Sol Stein, national executive director and Israel Stolarsky, associate director. William H. Sylk of Philadelphia was re-elected chairman of the American Histadrut Development Foundation and Howard J. Samuels, chairman of the American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute.
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