The United Israel Appeal has received a U.S. government refugee resettlement grant of $25 million for 1987. This grant, the latest to UIA since 1973, was again initiated by Congress and is twice the amount provided in 1986. The announcement was made by H. Irwin Levy, chairman of UIA’s U.S. Government Relations Committee, at the organization’s recent Board of Directors meeting in New York City.
Henry Taub, UIA’s chairman, stated that thus far UIA has received 12 refugee resettlement grants totaling $310.077 million to assist in the absorption of refugees in Israel.
The grants, which are supported in both Houses of Congress and in the State Department and the White House, reflect the U.S. government’s desire to link its support of refugee resettlement in Israel directly to the philanthropic support of Israel by the American Jewish community, Taub said.
He said that during the same period the grants were made, some $4 billion was given to Israel by American Jews to assist the country with these immigration and absorption programs.
Taub called the grant program “one of the most successful such programs ever funded by the U.S. government.” He pointed out that in recent years the absorption of Ethiopian Jews has been much more costly than the absorption of any other group thus far, thus justifying the need for additional financial support.
ALLOCATION OF THE GRANT FUNDS
Levy said that the 1987 grant funds will be used for refugee resettlement, as follows: en route care and maintenance; transportation; maintenance at absorption centers; hostels and ulpanim; maintenance at youth aliya institutions, financial assistance to the needy or handicapped; maintenance and financial assistance for students and for vocational training; maintenance at homes for the elderly; construction and/or acquisition of apartments.
Irving Kessler, UIA’s executive vice chairman, indicated that $125,000 of grant funds will be allocated for the support of a grassroots organization of Ethiopian immigrants in Israel.
He noted that the organization’s members and leaders, drawn entirely from the Ethiopian community in Israel, will strive to develop a sense of pride and achievement in the community, to assist with and further informal education among its membership, and to introduce Ethiopian Jewish culture to Israeli society-at-large.
Kessler said that the organization of Ethiopian immigrants operates with a small professional staff, as well as with volunteers, in Safed, Carmiel, Upper Nazareth, Maalot, Kiryat Shmona and Afula, all localities with large concentrations of Ethiopian immigrants.
He stated that UIA’s special allocation will be used for organizational infrastructure and manpower needs, an Amharic-English-Hebrew newsletter, a speakers’ bureau, a music-dance-drama performing troupe, a handicrafts project, and an interest-free loan fund.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
