At a recent meeting here, the by-laws of the United Israel Appeal were changed to expand its Board of Directors from 39 to 63 and give more direct participation in UIA affairs to local Jewish community Federations and the national United Jewish Appeal. This was announced by Irwin Field, chairman of the UIA, who served as chairman of the Special UIA Committee to propose changes in the organization’s by-laws.
Field said that at the by-laws meeting, the Board of Directors approved changes which aimed to “better ensure that UIA’s work would more directly reflect thinking on the local scene.” He said the changes in the by-laws will now be placed before the UIA’s Board of Trustees for ratification at the organization’s annual meeting on April 16.
Under the old by-laws, American Jewish communities and national UJA were represented by 25 Board members. Federations now will directly select 24 members through the UIA nominating process, including the Council of Jewish Federations president in ex officio. They will also find their active leadership among the 12 UJA and 12 UIA at-large nominees.
All Board membership, according to Field, “must now meet the criteria of having a record of leadership services in their Federations as excellent contributors to the annual Federation campaign and attendance at a Jewish Agency Assembly.
“The ex-officio Board members will now include, in addition to the CJF president, the UJA’s national campaign chairman and chairman of it Board of Trustees, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee president, and the Jewish Agency’s chairman of the Board of Governors and Treasurer.”
Field stated that the special by-laws committee also “reaffirmed the role in the UIA of the World Zionist Organization, which includes all world-wide Zionist organizations; the Conservative, Orthodox and Reform religious movements, as well as the Sephardi Union. In addition, the Committee defined the role and composition of UIA’s Board of Trustees, giving it increased powers.”
Members of the special by-laws committee were, in addition to Field, Bernard Borine, Joel Breslau, Shoshana Cardin, Ray Epstein, Alex Grass, Sylvia Hassenfeld, Jerold Hoffberger, Ron Kaufman, Morris Levinson, Robert Loup, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, Bernice Tannenbaum, Henry Taub, and Harry Taubenfeld.
The UIA is the organization which receives funds from national UJA campaigns, as well as U.S. State Department grants, and administers and allocates these funds in Israel, through its sole operating agent there, the Jewish Agency.
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