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It was an outpouring of love and affection for Golda Meir, the former Israeli prime minister, who was 79 and ailing, and one sensed that this may be the last time we would see her. In- deed, she died, in Israel, several months later. Her head was barely visi- ble above the lectern, but her voice was firm, and dur- ing the next hour, speaking without notes, she kept her audience mesmerized. With an unfailing memory and a wry sense of humor, she spoke of her first, and only other, appearance at a G.A. The year was 1948, and she came to Chicago as part of a whirlwind, six-week effort to raise $25 million on behalf of a Jewish nation that had not yet declared statehood but was already at war. In the end, Mrs. Meir rais- ed $50 million and, upon her return to Jerusalem, David Ben-Gurion remarked, "Some day when history will be written, it will be said that there was a Jewish woman who raised the money that made the State possible." That day in Dallas, one sensed a powerful bond bet- ween Golda Meir and the many hundreds of Jews from throughout the U.S. and Canada who had come to help plan the communal Jewish agenda and whose concern for Israel and Jew- ish peoplehood was para- mount. At the end of her address, Mrs. Meir noted, "I almost was going to say that in 30 years I'll come back and see you all again. But I've always been a realist. My only hope is that one day I can come back and be able to say 'We made it — there is peace in Israel.' " That scene, and those words, come to mind on the eve of the 1991. General Assembly, the first ever held in Baltimore, as peace looms as a possibility in the Mideast. The G.A. symbolizes American Jewry at its best — and points up some of its weaknesses. Its emphasis is on volunteer fund-raising unmatched by any Jewish community in history. The numbers are remarkable. It is estimated that the 189 federations throughout the U.S. and Canada raised $1.2 billion last year for Israel, Soviet Jewish resettlement, Golda Meir: She raised the money. overseas and national agen- cies as well as local Jewish institutions, ranging from family and vocational ser- vices to boards of education. But with its focus on con- sensus, the federation world has difficulty taking bold and dramatic steps, par- ticularly in dealing with crises that transcend finan- cial solutions. Many studies have been done to document the in- crease in assimilation and intermarriage and the decline in Jewish education and religious commitment. But little has been done by the organized Jewish com- munity to counter those trends because there is no one unified approach. Re- ligious issues are usually avoided so as not to cause a rift.