The United Jewish Appeal, the central fund-raising body in the American Jewish community, has decided to launch a $450 million fund-raising appeal to assist the estimated 1 million Soviet Jews who will have immigrated to Israel by the end of 1993.
The campaign, approved March 7 by the UJA board of trustees and 60 national vice-chair-persons responsible for campaign operations, will start this fall and will end Dec. 31, 1992, according to Marvin Lender, UJA’s national chairman.
“It is essentially a campaign responding to the requirements and needs of the Jewish Agency for the Soviet resettlement through 1993,” Lender said in an interview Tuesday.
UJA campaign money raised for Soviet Jewry is passed on to the Jewish Agency in Israel, which has been covering the total cost of transporting Soviet immigrants and their luggage to Israel, as well as a portion of their initial resettlement costs.
Diaspora Jewry outside the United States will be asked by Keren Hayesod to raise an additional $200 million to help cover resettlement costs, he said.
The new campaign comes on the heels of UJA’s 1990 Operation Exodus campaign, which raised over $420 million for Soviet Jewish resettlement.
As that campaign got under way, the numbers of Soviet Jews trying to leave for Israel increased dramatically over original estimates.
Last year, about 181,000 Soviet Jews arrived in Israel. About 300,000 are still expected to arrive this year, despite a lull in immigration during the Persian Gulf war.
SHORTFALL BRIDGED WITH LOANS
Lender said the new campaign, as yet unnamed, will be complemented by a loan program to make up the expected $1.35 billion shortfall the Jewish Agency will face in assisting Soviet Jewish resettlement over the next few years.
“We don’t feel we can raise $1.3 billion, and we are raising what we think is the capacity of the Jewish community in a campaign. And the balance of the shortfall will be generated by a loan program,” he explained.
Under the loan program, local Jewish federations will guarantee bank loans totaling $900 million, which includes a reserve of $200 million to cover potential defaults.
Since March 1, arriving Soviet immigrants have been receiving part of their cash subsidy in loans, which later will be assumed by federations once the loan program is officially approved. The loans are being granted by Israeli banks, Lender said.
Lender said UJA’s final fund-raising figure was established “hand-in-hand” through consultations that included leaders of the Council of Jewish Federations, which represents 179 federations in the United States.
“We’ve been working with CJF, and CJF endorses our campaign, and we endorse their loan program,” he said.
Federation leaders will meet in Washington on April 16 to vote on the loan program. CJF is planning a satellite hookup conference next week to discuss the program with federations across the country.
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