14 'Friday, March 30, 1984
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Flexing their muscles
o.
Continued from Page 1
for the wrong job, and that's the way
they voted.
Frustrated Herut leaders and
supporters cried "foul"! They blasted
what they called illegitimate Diaspora
"interference" in Israeli political af-
fairs.
This thunderous Herut denuncia-
tion was a bit late and out of date. The
new wave of Diaspora assertiveness in
Israeli affairs had already hit them as
recently as last October. At that time
the Jewish Agency board of governors,
under the leadership of chairman
Jerold Hoffberger of Baltimore, voted
to oust the previous Herut incumbent
in the Aliyah post, Raphael Kotlowitz,
who was considered unfit after several
years on the job.
In the latest tangle over the
Aliyah post, Shamir asked Hoffberger
to support Sharon's candidacy.
Hoffberger's "no" reverberated
throughout the Israeli media and was
a factor in stopping Sharon.
These two incidents provided Is-
raelis, who usually do not pay much
attention to WZO/Agency affairs, with
vivid illustrations that Diaspora
passivity is a thing of the past — at
least in areas where their "advise and
consent" is actively sought.
While most Israelis would deny an
active role to Diaspora Jews in deter-
mining life and death matters such as
security policy, many Israelis are get-
ting used to the idea that Diaspora
Jews should have a voice in determin-
ing how their contributions to Israel
are spent and who does the spending.
The main arena today for Dias-
pora participation in Israeli affairs is
the Jewish Agency, which has spent
over $7 billion since the establishment
of Israel in 1948 on bringing immig-
rants to Israel and providing the set-
tlements, schools, social and health
services intended to ensure their suc-
cessful absorption. In the 1970s, with
the mass immigration of the 1950s
well behind it, the Agency turned its
attention to helping the disadvan-
taged sectors of the population catch
up with the more established groups.
Diaspora Jewry's contribution to
the building of Israeli society through
the Agency is clearly reflected in the
figures. Two-thirds of the $7 billion
spent by the Agency since 1948 has
come from the United Jewish Appeal
and the Keren Hayesod, the fund-
raising arm of Jewish communities
outside the United States. Of the $424
million collected in 1982-1983 for the
Agency, some $324 million came from
the UJA and $97 million from the
Keren Hayesod.
For most of the Agency's 55-year
history, however, Diaspora participa-
tion in policy-making and supervision
has lagged far behind their monetary
contributions. The Zionist political
parties and their Israeli counterparts
have continued to control most of the
funds and administrative apparatus of
the Agency and the WZO.
The WZO, which last year had a
budget of close to $100 million, is a
legally distinct entity from the
Agency, although they have some joint
functions and overlapping governing
bodies (see box, Page 15). The WZO's
budget comes mainly from the Israeli
government and the Keren Hayesod,
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with some funds provided by the
Agency.
Since the re-organization of the
Agency in 1971, the relationship be-
tween the Israeli and Diaspora corn-
ponents of the Agency has been offi-
cially based on the principle of
partnership. This principle has been
implemented in some areas, but in
others it remains no more than an at-
tractive slogan.
In political matters such as the
recent flap over Sharon, partnership
means that the Israeli political parties
and their counterparts in the WZO
have the right to nominate candidates
for executive posts in the Agency, but
they must first gain the approval of a
majority of the Zionist parties, many of
whom represent the Diaspora. Once
this hurdle is passed, the candidates
must be approved by the Agency board
of governors.
Partnership also extends to
policy-making and to the supervision
of Agency operations and budgets,
which is carried out by the board of
governors.
The Jewish Agency for Palestine,
as it was first called, was the brain-
child of the long-time president of the
WZO, Dr. Chaim Weizmann. Estab-
lished in 1929, it was intended to pro-
vide a framework for wealthy and
prominent "non-Zionist" Jews around
the world to support the Zionist aims of
building a "national home for Ahe
Jewish People in Palestine," without
requiring them to formally identify as
"Zionists."
As it was later humorously ex-
pressed, the Agency enabled "one Jew
to give money to a second Jew so that a
third Jew could immigrate and settle
in Palestine."
A framework separate from but
interrelated with the WZO was con-
sidered necessary in those days be-
cause many Diaspora Jewish suppor-
ters of Zionist goals shied away from
the label of "Zionist." Before 1948, and
in some quarters well afterwards too,
the "Zionist" label raised the specter of
dual loyalty and put Jews under suspi-
cion of being "Zionist agents" in their
home countries.
The separate framework of the
Agency also proved eminently suita-
ble for American tax regulations,
which allowed deductions for contri-
butions to philanthropic organizations
but prohibited them for expressly
political bodies such as the WZO or for
foreign governments.
The "Non-Zionists" in the Agency
played only a minor role in its opera-
tions in the 1930s and 1940s. Then and
after 1948 the Agency and the WZO
were for all practical purposes one
organization controlled by the Israeli
political establishment. The attitude
of the Israeli leaders was in effect:
"Give us your money and keep your
advice to yourselves." At that time the
Agency was highly politicized and
some of its funds were diverted to
party institutions. To the public at
large, the Agency became a byword for
inefficiency, featherbedding and polit-
ical corruption.
The Six Day War of 1967, which
proved to be a watershed for Israel- c:).
Diaspora relations in many spheres,
was also the catalyst leading to the
transformation of the Diaspora role in
the Agency. Isareli leaders such as the
late Louis Pincus, who was then
Agency chairman, and Diaspora lead-
ers such as Max Fisher of Detroit, then
chairman of the Council of Jewish
Federations, understood the need for
greater mutual involvement and re-
sponsibility in running the Agency.
They used the outpouring of concern,
identification — and money — for Is-
rael during that critical time as an
opportunity to press for change.
The result was the "reconstituted"
Jewish Agency founded in 1971, which
gave the Diaspora fund-raisers half of
the delegates on the Agency policy-
making bodies, but confined them to
minority status on the executive.
Many of the Diaspora leaders who
entered the reconstituted Agency were
much less constricted by the approach
of sentimental philanthropy that
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