The fund-raising committee of the Jewish Agency, recently set up by the Agency’s Board of Governors, met here this weekend to discuss details of the next campaign. An Agency spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the target was $1,250 billion as well as the redemption of pledges, cash flow and international cooperation between appeal organizations in various diaspora countries for the purpose of sharing techniques and experiences at various levels. He said that this type of cooperation was already in existence and proving very beneficial. The meeting was attended by 60 leaders from 10 countries, among them Max Fisher, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors.
A Jewish Agency spokesman told the JTA today that a number of proposals for the forthcoming campaigns in the diaspora had been adopted and would be brought before the Executive for advice and approval. He said the meeting had been addressed by Paul Zuckerman, general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal; Irving Bernstein, executive vice-chairman of the UJA; Ezra Shapird chairman of Keren Hayesod; S.J. Kreutner of the KH; Leon Dulzin, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive; Edward Ginsberg, chairman of the American Joint Distribution Committee; and Michael M. Sacher, chairman of the Joint Israel Appeal in Great Britain. Sacher and Ginsberg are joint chairmen of the fund-raising committee.
Sacher said in his opening statement: “We are not meeting here to celebrate past achievements but to examine areas where we could have perhaps done more, and where we could help each other and learn from each other’s experience.”
WAR COST, A FRIGHTENING FIGURE
Ginsberg told the meeting: “We have all heard the statement by the acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, Leon Dulzin, that the cost of the (Yom Kippur) war had been $8 billion. This is a frightening figure. At the same time, it cannot in any sense be measured against the loss in human life sustained by the people of Israel. But the least we can do is to help them make good the material losses and to restore the shattered Israeli economy.”
Dulzin said in his address: “We have to face a new reality. Without the drama and heroism of the war it will not be an easy task to explain to Jews everywhere how to translate their commitment to Israel into direct monetary support. We will have to go from community to community in order to instruct and explain. This is a task we can only do together in cooperation.”
According to the Jewish Agency spokesman, the agenda of the meeting also included a number of vital issues such as a review of aliya, absorption, adoption of the agenda for the Third Assembly of the Jewish Agency to be held in Jerusalem next June, and budgetary problems.
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.
