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$78,000,000 Needed to Settle 60,000 Immigrants on Land, U.J.A. Told by Agency

November 25, 1949
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A program for the settlement of 60,000 new immigrants in Israel on farms and in rural settlements at an estimated cost of 28,000,000 pounds ($78,400,000) was outlined here last night by Levi Eshkol, Jewish Agency treasurer, in a cable to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal. The message will be embodied in an overall plan to be placed before the U.J.A. conference in Atlantic City this week-end to help it decide the U.J.A. quotas for next year.

Mr. Eshkol informed the U.J.A. leader that the 60,000 immigrants, in 17,000 family units, must be settled on the land in 1950 in order to provide a minimum agricultural base for the resettlement and economic absorption of 200,000 immigrants throughout the Jewish state next year. The Agency treasurer said that at least 12,000,000 pounds must be provided by the Jewish National Fund and the Keren Hayesod, while the government will contribute 10,000,000 pounds and another 6,000,000 pounds will be provided from the $100,000,000 Export-Import Bank lean.

Mr. Eshkol labelled the plan the most ambitious yet undertaken by the Agency, but asserted that with ten percent of the country’s population idle in immigrant camps there is no other possible solution. He said that the Israel people must sacrifice more through greater taxation and American Jews must be more generous in order to solve the problem.

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