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A Billion Dollars for Israel:
The Four-Point Plan's Impact on American Jewry
- Abstract
BY ROUGH but fairly sound computation, the total of all the funds raised during the past three years for Jewish development in Israel from all sources in the United States-philanthropy, investment, and credit-adds up to something just beyond 400 million dollars. The goal for the next three years, however, is no less than an additional thousand million dollars. This is the apparently astronomical pledge to which the leadership of the organized Jewish community is now formally committed.
The dimensions of this goal grow even vaster when one reflects that the 400 million-odd dollars were amassed in three years of high drama and exhilaration. The first year, 1948-the year of Israel’s birth, of her battle against the Arab invader, of the opening of her gates to the mighty immigrant tide-was the peak year in the history of fund-raising. The following two years saw a progressively slackening response-but a response still relatively alert to the challenge of buttressing the victorious new state, shutting the DP camps of Europe forever, “ingathering the exiles.”
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