Mendel Kaplan, chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, urged American Jews this week to show their support for the State of Israel at this “difficult time” by visiting the country.
“Israel needs your presence as much as your money,” Kaplan told American Jewish leaders attending a briefing session Tuesday for the upcoming Jewish Agency Assembly in Jerusalem.
Expressing concern over the decline in American Jewish tourism to Israel since the disturbances in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip began in December, Kaplan said that American Jews have not being showing their support and concern for Israel “in terms of being there.”
“We need to show our support for Israel not only in monetary sense, but also by being involved and being there,” he said. He complained that when American Jews are concerned about physical safety, they cancel their trips to Israel.
American Jews and Jews all over the world should come and visit Israel in “times of stress,” as well as in time of joy, Kaplan asserted.
Israel’s hotel industry is presently facing a crisis as a result of the decline in tourism, especially from the United States.
Kaplan, who was the keynote speaker at the Jewish Agency briefing, devoted his short address to the new challenges and plans for reshaping the agency and streamlining its operation.
‘INVOLVED IN CONSTANT CHANGE’
“We are involved in constant change, reevaluating and updating,” the chairman said. He said the implications of these changes will be discussed by the delegates at the agency assembly, which is scheduled in June.
The proposed changes are in the fields of Jewish education, immigration and absorption, and development projects in Israel, Kaplan said. The changes include the following:
A joint authority for the monitoring, coordination and evaluation of all Jewish education programs sponsored by the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization will be established “to avoid duplication.”
The Jewish Agency will turn over its absorption activities of new immigrants to the Israeli Ministry of Absorption. “The Jewish Agency will become part of the process that confronts bureaucracy” in helping the immigrants become integrated into Israeli society, Kaplan said.
The Jewish Agency will move from rural settlements projects toward regional development, with strong emphasis on high-tech industries and computerization.
The new development approach, Kaplan said, will concentrate on developing whole regions, such as the Arava or Galilee, instead of single settlements.
Kaplan cited the town of Yeroham in southern Israel as an example of successful urban development in recent years. A town on the verge of disintegration, with high unemployment and dwindling population, Yeroham is now “the first computerized town in Israel and probably in the world,” a technological center for the Arava and Negev region, he said.
The changes undertaken by the Jewish Agency, Kaplan said, are to “make it relevant to the Israel of tomorrow.”
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.
