Plans for the development of two schools in Israel into the first American center for pre-college education in that country were announced here today to 1,000 delegates attending the meeting of the national executive committee of the Zionist Organization of America.
Leon Ilutovich, executive director of the ZOA, said the project involved the Mollie Goodman Academic High School and the Kfar Silver Agricultural High School which share a single campus near Ashkelon. The academic high school was named after the late Mrs. Mollie Goodman, wife of Abraham Goodman, American industrialist and philanthropist.
The agricultural high school now has an enrollment of 340 students, Mr. Ilutovich said. Ultimately, the pre-college campus, he said, will have an enrollment of more than 1,000 students. The campus, he declared, will also serve as a training ground for young Zionist leaders. This summer, he reported. 100 American high school students and ZOA youth leaders attended a seven-week camp and leadership training course at Kfar Silver.
In resolutions adopted at the session today, the ZOA declared 1967 the ZOA’s 70th Jubilee Year, calling on all Zionist regions and districts to mark the observance suitably; called for increased immigration from the Western countries into Israel; and pledged cooperation with the Israel Government Immigration Planning Authority in developing special incentives to aid new immigrants coming into Israel.
Jacques Torczyner, president of the ZOA, told the convention that “a new, imaginative policy” must be worked out regarding the Arab refugees. He declared that the United States Government “together with the free world and American Jewry, should develop a constructive plan for a permanent solution of the refugee problem.”
In his presidential address, Mr. Torczyner also deplored the development in the extremist wings of the Negro civil rights movement of tendencies “similar to the extreme right-wing movements in the United States which have become thoroughly infiltrated by anti-Semitism.”
Mr. Torczyner said that the “United States Government should draw the attention of the Soviet Government to the fact that it is also concerned about the future of the Jews in the Soviet Union.” He said that “we cannot accept the attitude that the fate of the Jews in the Soviet Union is a matter of internal concern. We hope that this campaign of Soviet hatred against Israel will not result in a further deterioration of the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union.”
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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.
