Jewish Agency, Inc. Allocates $37,000,000 for Immediate Use in Israel

The Jewish Agency for Israel, Inc,–chief beneficiary of the United Jewish Appeal campaigns–today allocated $37,000,000 to carry out urgent humanitarian programs among Israel’s large immigrant population.

The action was taken by the Agency’s board of directors, headed by Dr. Dewey D. Stone, at a special meeting, after a detailed analysis of pressing refugee problems was outlined by Louis Pincus, treasurer of the Jewish Agency, Jerusalem, and also a member of the board of director of JAFI, Inc., who had arrived here for the meeting.

Mr. Pincus called attention to the entry of a quarter of a million immigrants into Israel in the last five years, emphasizing that there was an acute shortage of funds to cope with the pressing economic, medical, social and educational needs of “multiplied heterogeneous thousands of Jewish men, women and children.” He warned that Israel’s new development towns are “seriously lagging behind economically, underprivileged educationally, isolated socially in varying degrees,” posing “a grave threat to their residents being integrated into the nation’s economic and social life.”

Dr. Stone asserted that the emphasis in budgeting and expenditures “is now beginning to change towards the direct relief of human misery and the alleviation of suffering to greater stress on the immediate care of and welfare services to individuals.” He told the meeting that the greater majority of Israel’s recent arrivals are “still impoverished and had not yet been absorbed into Israel’s economic and social life.”

A breakdown of the allocations includes such outlays as $23,030,000 for immigration; $10,087,000 for absorption; $2,250,000 for youth care and training; $3,758,000 for absorption in agricultural settlements; $5,600,000 for construction of immigrant housing; $1,2550,000 towards the maintenance of institutions of higher learning.