United Israel Appeal - excerpt from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, 1986;

This page is an extract, reproduced with permission, from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1986.

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• Year established: 1925
• Chairman: Irwin S. Field
• Executive Vice-Chairman: Irving Kessler
• Address: 515 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022
• Publications: Briefings

General Background

In 1921, Chaim Weizmann, then president of the WZO, established Keren Hayesod (the [Palestine] Foundation Fund) in the United States in order to tap money from American Jewry in support of the Zionist program in Palestine. Though Zionist leaders such as Louis Brandeis discouraged him at first from setting high expectations for American Jewish support, Weizmann went ahead, and the initial response proved him right. Simultaneously, however, the JNF also claimed to be the sole fundraising arm for the WZO. The two began competing over the same source of money for the same cause, although Keren Hayesod had a more generalized appeal than the JNF, which focused on land reclamation. In 1925, the two organizations were combined for fundraising purposes, and, in 1927, they became the United Palestine Appeal (UPA).

This situation lasted until 1939 when, because of the need for much larger amounts of money, the UJA was created as the principal fundraising organization for both the UPA (which became the UIA after 1948) and the JDC. At that point UPA/UIA stopped its fundraising activity altogether and became the major beneficiary of UJA funds or, as one official described it, a ‘standby organization.’ Thus, while Keren Hayesod became the principal fundraising organization among Jews in over sixty countries throughout the world, the UJA assumed that role in the United States.

Structure and Role

The UIA describes itself as the

‘Link between [the] American Jewish community and [the] Jewish Agency for Israel, its operating agent,’

and indicates that it

‘Assists in resettlement and absorption of refugees in Israel, and supervises [the] flow of funds and expenditures for this purpose.’

In other words, as the major recipient of funds raised by the UJA, the UIA serves as a conduit, retaining about four percent of its allocation for administrative and managerial costs and forwarding the rest to the JA.

In addition to the funds it receives annually from the UJA, the UIA has, since 1971, received support from the U.S. government. Between 1972 and 1976, Washington provided the UIA with about $121 million for the ‘resettlement of Soviet refugees in Israel.’ In 1980, U.S. government aid to the UIA was $20.2 million, and, in 1981, about $28 million, or about 10 percent of UIA's total income for the year.

The UIA is a tax-exempt corporation registered in the state of New York. According to its bylaws (as amended on 25 January 1953), the UIA consists of 120 persons, 72 representing Keren Hayesod and 48 representing American Jewish communities in consultation with the CJF. This means that the UIA is structurally controlled by Keren Hayesod, which is in turn controlled by the Zionist Organization of America (with majority votes), the Poale Zion Party of America, the Mizrachi Organization of America, and Hadassah (the Women's Zionist Organization of America). Under the specific control of the Zionist establishment in the United States, then, the UIA is the link in the transfer of funds from the American Jewish community to the Jewish Agency for Israel.