Jewish National Fund - 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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(Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael)

• Year established: 1901
• President: Charlotte Jacobson
• Executive Vice-President: Samuel 1. Cohen
• Address: 42 East 69th Street, New York, NY 10021
• Publications: JNF Almanac, Land and Ltfe

General Background

Hermann Shapira, a Lithuanian rabbi and professor of mathematics, first proposed the creation of a Jewish fund for the acquisition of land in Palestine at the first Zionist Congress, held in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. The proposal did not get enough backing, however, until the fifth Zionist Congress in 1901, when the JNF was created as ‘a trust for the Jewish people, which can be used exclusively for the purchase of land in Palestine and Syria.’ With that legal status, the JNF soon became the sole fundraising arm of the WZO for the acquisition of land in Palestine.

Following the creation of Israel, the Knesset adopted the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael Law, 571411953, which authorized the minister of justice to incorporate the JNF in Israel ‘with a view to continuing the activities of the Existing Company that had been founded and incorporated in the Diaspora.’ In 1954, the new Israeli corporation acquired all the assets and liabilities of the JNF that was incorporated in England in 1907. The

‘Primary object of the Association was now "to purchase, acquire on lease or in exchange, or receive on lease or otherwise, lands, forests, rights of possession, easements and any similar rights as well as immovable properties of any class, in the prescribed region (which expression shall in this Memorandum mean the State of Israel in any area within the jurisdiction of the Government of Israel) or in any part thereof, for the purpose of settling Jews on such lands and properties’. (Clause 3, Subclause a)

In an attempt to clarify the relationship between the JNF and the state of Israel, an agreement was signed in 1960 between the JNF and the Israeli government, stipulating that the JNF ‘shall continue to operate, as an independent agency of the World Zionist Organization, among the Jewish public in Israel and the Diaspora, raising funds for the redemption of land ... and conducting informational and Zionist-Israel educational Activities.’

Until it was absorbed into the United Palestine Appeal in 1925, the JNF in the United States claimed to be the sole fundraising arm of the WZO. Rather than remain a recipient organization of UJA funds, in 1951 the JNF reclaimed its independent status as a Zionist organization whose purpose was to raise funds from American Jewry for the reclamation and afforestation of lands in Israel. Today, the JNF in the United States-the territorial fundraising for the JNF in Israel-is registered in New York as a tax-exempt corporation.

Role

The JNF describes itself as the ‘exclusive fundraising agency of the world Zionist movement for the afforestation, reclamation, and development of the land of Israel, including the construction of roads and preparation of sites for new settlements,’ adding that it ‘helps emphasize the importance of Israel in schools and synagogues throughout the world.’ Until the creation of Israel, the JNF focused on land purchases. Subsequently, there has been a gradual shift in emphasis from land acquisition to land reclamation, road building, and various forms of assistance to new settlements, including well drilling, construction of dams and irrigation systems, and large-scale afforestation. Thousands of kilometers of Israeli roads connecting numerous and proliferating Jewish settlements all carry the symbol of the JNF; many public parks and forests also carry the JNF insignia. JNF operations since the 1967 war fall into three categories by location:

• (1) inside Israel's 1948 borders
• (2) areas that had been ‘inaccessible to development’ before the 1967 war, such as along the Syrian border and the Yarmuk River, as well as ‘East Jerusalem whose inclusion in Israel has become an established fact.’
• (3) ‘other lands now under Israel's jurisdiction ...’ referring to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and, most recently, the south of Lebanon.

The projects of the JNF have an impact beyond their obvious agricultural and economic significance; in his speech at the eightieth National Assembly, JNF president Rabbi William Berkowitz proclaimed that ‘the JNF is also creating historic conditions, establishing strategic realities and forming geopolitical security certainties.... ‘ Since the 1960s, the JNF has closely cooperated with the Israeli army to build Nahal (Army Pioneer Settler Corps) outpost villages on border sites because of their strategic importance. The JNF has sponsored more than one hundred mitzpim (observation and lookout posts) that ‘put Israeli security into place.’ Road building also has a strategic importance; as Berkowitz noted

‘if today there is a vital conduit between Israel and her Christian allies in Lebanon, it is because of paved roads on the desolate Lebanese border. And who made it possible? The JNF.’

The information disseminated by the JNF in the United States is characterized by a romantic vision of Zionist settlement that either ignores the existence of an indigenous Palestinian population residing within Israeli borders in their own villages and towns or else portrays their very presence as a threat to Israel's security which must be overcome. This is how Rabbi Berkowitz characterized the Galilee in his 1982 Presidential Address

‘Let us turn now, and in the Biblical phrase, look to the North.’

‘A recent issue of our JNF publication Land and Life carried on its cover the headline, 'Galilee: The Empty North' That phrase sums up the challenge Israel faces in the North, for there too, just as in the South, geopolitical and strategic significance attaches itself to the facts we are creating.’

‘Are you aware that the population of the area between Acre and Safed is about 220,000 and that of this 65 percent are Arabs? Do you know that in some areas of the Galilee the Arab population has a numerical majority of as much as eight to one? We are speaking of a region that is critically important to the State of Israel, whose size amounts to 275,000 acres, yet whose Jewish population is a mere 32 percent!’

‘Need I tell you how delicate the situation is? Need I tell you the implications of these statistics? Need I tell you of the campaign by radical Arabs to seize Jewish-owned land on which there is no visible Jewish presence?’

‘Here too the Jewish National Fund is meeting the challenge, creating an infrastructure for the establishment of strategically vital new settlements as well as the expansion of existing settlements.’

The political content of JNF's work is evident in its campaign to develop the Galilee, the area with the greatest Palestinian population concentration (nearly 300,000 people) within the 1967 borders of Israel. While in the Galilee as a whole (including Nahariya and Tiberias, 40 percent of the population is Jewish, as of 1980, in the hill areas Jews numbered only 77,000 out of a total population of 235,000.

The Israeli government has been working to ‘Judaize the Galilee,’ in the phrasing of Israeli officials, precisely in order to change the present character of its demography and landholding, an issue that Labor Party Knesset member Gad Yaacobi described, in comparison to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as ‘more sensitive, more critical, and maybe even more problematic to the State of Israel in the years to come.’ JNF land reclamation efforts conducted within the the Green Line (separating the area ruled by Israel since 1948 from those occupied in 1967) have thus been focused on the Galilee region. Through the efforts of the JNF and other agencies, one hundred settlements were built in the Galilee between 1977 and 1981; most of these are the small mitzpim (small outposts) aimed at ‘establishing a Jewish presence....’ The Israel Land Administration and the JA offer special economic incentives to encourage Jewish settlement there. Not surprisingly, the degree of hostility to Arabs is greater among Jews in the Galilee-where settlement efforts are centered-than it is elsewhere in Israel. A survey conducted by the Jewish-Arab Centre, the results of which were presented to a conference at Haifa University in 1984, disclosed that while 49 percent of Jews in Israel as a whole want the state to encourage Arab emigration, 57 percent of Jews in the Galilee share that sentiment, and 72 percent of them want restrictions imposed to prevent the Arabs from becoming a majority.

Flow of Funding

Historically, the JNF relied on such fundraising techniques as selling trees in Israel, stamps, inscribing the names of large contributors in what was called the Golden Book, and of course, the famous Blue Box, which was used to collect donations. A circular from JNF's Department of Education lamenting the disappearance of the Blue Box from Jewish homes emphasizes its symbolic as well as financial value and urges Jews to reintroduce it to their homes. ‘Before lighting candles on Shabbat and Holidays,’ the circular suggests, ‘make a contribution in the presence of your children and encourage them to do so, giving from their own funds take time to discuss some aspect of Israel within the family circle You can include Zionist personalities and development of Zionism, geography of Eretz Yisrael and modern Israel, plants and animals mentioned in the Bible, and those we find today in the country, and so much more.... Parents and children together will then establish a living link to the Land of our Fathers, Israel.’

The era of the small-scale, community-based Blue Box has passed. In the words of Menachem Begin

‘The JNF was conceived by people of vision as the instrument of the whole Jewish people to share in the redemption and reclamation of the soil of Eretz Israel. What began as individuals making small weekly contributions to their 'Blue Boxes' developed in time into what is now a vast enterprise....’

In April 1980, the JNF in Jerusalem evaluated its total assets at more than $148 million. The primary sources of income were leases on JNF owned property, work contracted by the JA and the Israeli government, contributions from world Jewry, and the sale of timber thinned from JNF forests. JNF officials estimate that about one-third of the JNF's independent income comes from inheritances (wills and life insurance policies).

For the JNF in the United States, its annual report for the year ending in September 1982 showed total support and revenue of $7.1 million, with about $7 million from contributions. About $5.8 million was spent on programs, of which about $5.4 million was sent to Israel, and about $400,000 was spent on ‘public education and cultural activities,’ presumably within the United States for the most part. About $1.1 million was spent on fundraising and administration.

In the United States, the JNF now uses a variety of fundraising techniques, drawing on a network of ‘regions and councils’ to sponsor seminars, meetings, and dinners for specific JNF projects. All of its informational and fundraising activities stress one theme: support Israel by helping the JNF maintain Jewish control over the land.

During the Eightieth Anniversary Assembly, held in upstate New York in March 1981, JNF's executive vice-president presented a five-point program for the American JNF in the 1980s that included:

• (1) setting a ten-year income goal of $100 million
• (2) structuring a national fundraising cabinet
• (3) broadening JNF's organizational base to increase the activities of other Jewish organizations
• (4) holding conferences and consultations with public relations firms to bring JNF's message to the Jewish community
• (5) forming a national committee to develop policy guidelines and planning to raise funds in non-Jewish communities in the United States.

Since the JNF claims exclusive responsibility to raise funds for land~related projects, contributions from other American Zionist organizations to the JNF usually take the form of a commitment to fund a specific project, or an aspect of a project, initially proposed by JNF. The United Synagogue of America, the congregational arm of Conservative Judaism, announced during the 1981 JNF Anniversary Assembly that it had just funded its first United Synagogue forest, and that it had started raising funds from its members for another forest. The president of the United Synagogue of America announced at the beginning of 1982 that his organization had decided to launch a major project to establish a national park in Safad in the Galilee, which would be a JNF project. In 1976, the JNF of America launched the American Independence Park outside of Jerusalem in commemoration of the U.S. bicentennial. Pioneer Women (the Labor Zionist Organization of America) made a commitment to the JNF to underwrite the cost of a road in the park, estimated at $600,000 over three years. In 1981, the JNF gave its first ‘Tree of Life’ award to Evangeline Gouletas-Carey, wife of New York's former governor Hugh Carey, and her brother, real estate tycoon Nicholas Gouletas, for establishing a children's recreation park at Givat Homoreh, near Nazareth.

Like other pro-Israel fundraising organizations, the JNF also uses missions or delegations to Israel, as well as to post-Camp David Egypt. During one such delegation, the ‘JNF Collegiate Winter Seminar in Israel,’ thirty participants planted trees, visited settlements, and attended workshops with officials of the JNF and the Israeli government.