Failing The Universities
ne of the major justifi-
cations for the special
UJA fund-raising cam-
paign launched in 1982
during the war in Leba-
non was that the money
raised would go to Israel's seven univer-
sities. This was to compensate them for
the money that the government would
have to cut from its allocations for
higher education due to the pressures of
the war.
Some $60 million was raised in the
special campaign, considerably less than
the $100 million goal. The Jewish Agen-
cy budget showed $111 million allocated
for higher education in 1982/83 and $86
million in 1983/84 — the highest amounts
in years. But within two years of the out-
break of the Lebanon war, the univer-
sities had racked up a combined deficit
of $60 million, their finances were in a
shambles, their ranks of junior faculty
were decimated by dismissals, and their
overseas fund-raising organizations were
desperate for more donations.
Meanwhile, the American supporters
of the various "friends" organizations of
Israel's universities were being admon-
ished, as they are every year when the
annual UJA campaign begins, that the
Jewish Agency takes care of the needs
of Israel's universities and that separate
fund-raising for the universities only de-
9
tracts from the success of the general
campaign.
How was it possible for such a web of
contradictions to be spun around the
issue of aid to the universities? Such a
situation is possible only when the true
function of the Jewish Agency budget
line for higher education is kept con-
cealed from the people who donate the
money to the UJA, many of whom are
also supporters of university "friends".
organizations.
The money given by the Agency to
the universities, which has amounted to
close to $1 billion since 1971, does not
actually provide any net increase over
the amounts already budgeted by the
government. The government provides
some 65 per cent of the universities'
budgets, and regulates the sources of
their overall income. The Agency alloca-
tions for higher education simply re-
place government funds that would
have gone to them anyway. This frees
the government funds for other purposes.
So in.the final analysis, the government
decides how much combined Agency/
government support the universities will
get, and the Agency simply acts as a
passive conduit. Even if the governing
bodies of the Agency approved a resolu-
tion to increase its allocations to the
universities, this would not yield any net
benefits. The government would simp-
ly decrease its allocations by a cor-
responding amount.
The universities did not sink so deep-
ly into debt during 1982/84 because of
their own mismanagement. They had
maintained balanced budgets since the
mid-1970s following an earlier financial
crisis in the wake of the Yom Kippur
War.
Their financial and academic plight of
the past several years has its origins in
a vendetta conducted against them by
then Finance Minister Yoram Aridor. In
late 1982 a court order was issued com-
pelling the Treasury to pay higher sal-
aries to the professors. The professors
had already won an arbitration ruling to
this effect against the Treasury, but
were forced to go to court when Aridor
ignored the ruling and refused to pay.
So during 1983 the Treasury resorted
to all sorts of trickery to block or slow
down its allocations to the universities,
as a way of forcing them to absorb the
costs of the wage hike from other sources.
This in turn forced the universities to
take out expensive bank loans for the
first time since the mid-1970s in order
to keep their doors open. They did close
at one point for several months, though,
to protest the Treasury's failure to honor
its budgetary commitments.
Aridor's successor at the Treasury,
Yigal Cohen-Orgad, continued to cut the
universities' budgets, forcing them to
fire hundreds of junior faculty and to
delay purchases of needed equipment
and books. The universities naturally
turned to their overseas supporters for
help in this crisis, and millions of dollars
were raised in emergency appeals to help
keep them from sinking even deeper in-
to the financial morass.
And all this was happening while the
UJA was promoting the special cam-
paign for the Lebanon war by saying
that the money raised would go to help
the universities.
The "punch line" of this story con-
So while American
Jews were being told
that the proceeds of
the special campaign
were going to help
the universities, the
money was actually
going to the WZO.
cerns the hidden purpose of the money
that the Agency provides, ostensibly for
higher education. As noted above, these
funds simply replace government funds
that would have gone in any case to the
universities, thus freeing the govern-
ment funds for other purposes. As ex-
plained in Part II of this series, one of
the uses of the government funds thus
freed is to finance the activities of the
World Zionist Organization. This is
based on an agreement made in the ear-
ly 1970s when the WZO was separated
from the Agency.
So while American Jews were being
told that the proceeds of the special
campaign were going to help the univer-
sities, the money was actually going to
the WZO. And while the universities
were forced to slash their budgets and
lower their standards, thus endangering
Israel's academic and scientific standing
in the world, the WZO was allowed to
take a "business as usual" attitude to
its political activities and educational
programs of dubious value.
Conclusion
17