UP FRONT
Fund-raising Bodies To Speed Up
Immigrant-Absorption Effort
CHARLES HOFFMAN
Special to The Jewish News
L
eaders of the major
fund-raising organiza-
tions of world Jewry
have agreed to accelerate
their special campaigns to
help Israel meet the costs of
absorbing the rapidly rising
tide of immigrants from the
Soviet Union.
Diaspora leaders who
gathered in Jerusalem last
week for the Jewish Agency
Assembly laid the ground-
work for a $1 billion cam-
paign over three years for
the absorption of close to
half-a-million Soviet Jews in
Israel.
Their decision came in re-
sponse to urgent appeals for
more cash from the Jewish
Agency, which works in
partnership with the Israeli
government to transport the
immigrants and absorb
them in Israeli society.
Last fall, the Jewish Agen-
cy asked Diaspora fund-
raising bodies to raise $600
million over three years for
immigrant absorption. The
United Jewish Appeal
agreed to raise $420 million
in the United States and
Keren Hayesod agreed to
raise $180 million from
other countries, in what
became known as Operation
Exodus.
The campaign, which was
begun early this year, set
out to raise the full amount
in just one year, but donors
would have three years to
pay out their pledged con-
tributions.
Last week, leaders of UJA
and Keren Hayesod agreed
to urge their donors to pay
off their Operation Exodus
pledges over two years,
thereby making $300 mill-
ion a year available to the
Jewish Agency, rather than
$200 million.
The plan is then to begin a
new special drive once the
current one is complete.
"We are now in the midst
of what we call Operation
Exodus I. People will yet be
called on for increased giv-
ing in Exodus II," said Phil
Granovsky, a United Israel
Appeal leader from Canada
who chairs Keren Hayesod.
"When we get home," he
said, "we have to set the
mood for the next stage of
the campaign. It is urgent to
prepare people for this."
Granovsky, who chairs the
World Income Committee of
the Jewish Agency, spoke at
the closing session of the
agency Board of Governors
meeting here. He said the
Jewish Agency would need
$1 billion over the next three
years.
Veteran Jewish Agency
leader Max Fisher of Detroit
said that more money could
be raised in the Diaspora.
But he said the government
must prove that its absorp-
tion plans are being
implemented with the ut-
most speed.
If this does not happen, he
cautioned, pressure will
mount on the U.S. Congress
to increase entry quotas for
Soviet Jews beyond the
40,000 annual level, which
he said would be a
"disaster."
Agency and government
leaders last week agreed on
a $2.3 billion plan for the
aliyah an,d absorption of
150,000 Soviet Jews in
Israel this year. It is
estimated that similar
numbers of Soviet Jews will
be coming to Israel each year
over the next three years.
The agency pays transpor-
tation and shipping costs for
the immigrants, part of an
absorption grant they
receive during their first
year in Israel, and certain
social services for the
newcomers.
Israeli taxpayers will be
expected to pay most of the
Soviet Jews in their Israel apartment.
costs of long-term absorp-
tion, which means primarily
job creation and housing.
The Israeli government
must also build new schools
and expand the infrastruc-
ture — water, sewage, roads
and communications — to
cope with the added popula-
tion.
The chairman of the Jew-
ish Agency Board of Gover-
nors, Mendel Kaplan, said
Friday that because of the
upsurge in immigration, the
agency had doubled its
budget this year from $360
million to $740 million,
"with most of it going for
aliyah and absorption."
He lauded Diaspora
leaders for contributing ge-
nerously to help the Jewish
Agency meet the ensuing
cash shortfall.
Noting that UIA-Canada
had agreed to borrow $30
million to help fill the gap,
Kaplan said, "Both in-
dividuals and communities
are borrowing funds to pay
campaign pledges. They are
extending themselves in
peacetime, which is unheard
of."
Agency leaders admitted,
however, that even if cash
Continued on Page 12
tourists reached 181,000 —
up 35 percent from April
1989's figure of 134,000. In
the first four months of 1990,
a total of 528,000 visitors
came to Israel, an increase of
18 percent from the same
period last year.
Tourists from the United
States and Canada, number-
ing 62,500 in 1990, ac-
counted for 23.4 percent of
total visitors to Israel.
The participation of the
Hungarian government
marks a departure from the
policies of former govern-
ments in Eastern Europe
and the Soviet Union. Under
the former communist
regimes, the uniqueness of
Jewish suffering during
World War II was played
down.
The marble and bronze
memorial shows a large tree
in the shape of an inverted
menorah. The end of each of
its eight branches is marked
with a slash — representing
a wound — in the stone, from
which smaller branches
grow.
The site of the memorial
marks the entrance to the
former Jewish ghetto, which
the Nazis created when they
occupied Budapest, and the
grave of 6,000 Budapest
Jews, killed by the Germans
and their collaborators of the
Hungarian Arrow-Cross
militia.
Compiled by
Elizabeth Applebaum
ROUND UP
Wrestling Champ
Loves His Fans
Lookout world, it's Ben
Gurion — Joshua Ben
Gurion.
At 6'10" and 300 pounds,
Ben Gurion holds the world
Joshua Ben Gurion: Wrestling
champ.
championship title of the
American Wrestling Associ-
ation. He appeared recently
at Joe Louis Arena, where
an enthusiastic member of
the audience asked Ben
Gurion to kiss her baby.
Ben Gurion, who has
homes in Los Angeles and
New York, hopes to advance
other wrestling federations.
The Israeli-born wrestler
adopted the name "Ben
Gurion" in honor of Israel's
first prime minister, whose
strength and support for the
Jewish people he admires.
Ben Gurion said he loves
receiving letters from his
fans, and will answer all re-
quests for a photograph,
which shows the wrestler in
front of a flag of Israel.
For a photo, send two 25-
cent stamps to cover the cost
of postage to Joshua Ben
Gurion, P.O. Box 364, East
Islip, N.Y. 11730.
NCJW Featured In
Museum Exhibit
New York — A new ex-
hibit at the Smithsonian's
National Museum of Ameri-
can History in Washington,
D.C., will highlight the Na-
tional Council of Jewish
Women's role in ac-
complishing social reform in
America.
The exhibit, "From Parlor
to Politics: Women and
Reform in America, 1890-
1925," opened June 28.
One of the main features of
the exhibit will be informa-
tion about NCJW's founder,
Hannah Greenebaum
Solomon, who established
the organization in 1893
after a men's committee
refused to allow her group of
women to participate in a
program planned for the
Parliament of Religions at a
world's fair in Chicago.
Tourism To Israel
Is On The Rise
New York (JTA) —
Tourism to Israel, especially
from the United States and
Canada, has risen substan-
tially in 1990 and reached a
peak in April, the Israeli
Ministry of Tourism re-
ported.
Worldwide numbers of
Hungary Dedicates
Holocaust Memorial
New York — With the par-
ticipation of the president
and prime minister of
Hungary, a monument to
the memory of the Jewish
victims of the Holocaust will
be dedicated July 8 on the
grounds of the Great Syn-
agogue in Budapest.
Hungarian governmental
officials will be joined by
Jewish leaders, headed by
World Jewish Congress
President Edgar Bronfman,
from around the world for
the dedication.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
5