S.Y. Kreutner, director of the Keren Hayesod, urged big donors not to rest content with giving, but to approach other potential givers with that aim of prompting them also to give to Israel. Addressing members of the United Israel Appeal-Keren Hayesod international fact-finding mission (the-annual-most prestigious KH mission to Israel), Kreutner suggested that each such donor approach 10 to 15 others in the course of a year. Kreutner also urged that more emphasis be placed on middle givers (in the $3000-$6000 range). The mission members toured an air force base Friday and lunched with Golda Meir in Tel Aviv. Earlier last week they had visited Yamit, the new town being built at the southern end of the Gaza Strip.
During a meeting with Yosef Almogi, chairman of the World Zionist Organization Executive, one mission member asked why some Israelis left Israel. “For the same reason that you are not immigrating to Israel,” he replied. Almogi said he favored the establishment of a top level committee to study the motives beneath the wave of yerida (Israelis leaving Israel to live abroad).
In a similar vein, Tourism Minister Moshe Kol has proposed an urgent debate in the Cabinet–to be followed by prompt action–on the problem of yerida. According to various estimates, there are some 250,000 Israelis now living abroad, more or less permanently. Government efforts in the past to attract them back home have not been successful.
Last year’s yerida figure, estimated at 16,000, was only just less than the aliya figure. Kol said in his proposal for a Cabinet debate that of late yordim and those contemplating yerida “have no longer a sense of shame or regret” over their action or projected action.
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.
