The United Israel Appeal, the major beneficiary of United Jewish Appeal funds, announced at its recent annual meeting of the Board of Trustees the allocation of $316,279,805 in fiscal 1984 for programs of the Jewish Agency for Israel, including funds for Project Renewal.
Programs assisting the movement of Jews from Eastern Europe, Ethiopia and other countries of distress, received the bulk of these funds; $45,551,528 was expended by the Jewish Agency’s Department of Immigration and Absorption, and $38,424,763 was paid for the education of refugee and other children in Youth Aliya institutions, it was announced. The UIA received income of $334,622,000 last year, an increase of almost $37 million over the previous year.
Irwin Field of Los Angeles, who was re-elected UIA chairman, in his report to the meeting underlined the excellent relations between the UIA and the U.S. State Department. “Constructive contacts with Washington have led to fruitful cooperation in the rescue of endangered Jewish communities,” he said.
During the past 11 years, UIA has received $265,615,000 in grants from Congress, administered by the State Department, for the movement and initial absorption of refugees from Eastern Europe and other countries, the Trustees were told. For fiscal 1985, this Grant in Aid has been increased to $15 million, $2.5 million above last year, to help in the increased costs of absorbing Ethiopian Jews who have arrived in Israel.
Field announced a stepped-up effort to communicate with the American Jewish giving public the accountability procedures of the UIA.
A special film entitled “The Building of a Nation” was produced this year. In 1985, a monograph written by Zelig Chinitz, UIA director general in Jerusalem, will be published. Entitled “A Common Agenda,” it provides a detailed review of the evolving partnership between Jewish communities of Israel and the U.S. in the Reconstituted Jewish Agency and highlight the role played by the UIA in the Agency’s governance.
A history of the UIA, since its inception in 1925, is being written by Dr. Emest Stock of the Hebrew University and will be distributed in the fall of 1985.
In other reports, it was announced that in 1984 the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and UIA reconfimed their partnership in the annual fund-raising campaign of the national UJA. A contract signed between officials of the JDC and UIA allocates campaign income among the programs of both organizations.
UIA Trustees were also informed that UIA is responsible for $150 million in borrowing from American banks to provide necessary cash for services in Israel. The global debt of the Jewish Agency, of which this borrowing is a part, was reduced by $22,446,482 in 1984 as a result of economies, the collection of past due UJA pledges, and the sale of UIA-owned “subsidized” housing in Israel, it was reported.
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