Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal – History
1920, July 7 – 24: The annual conference of the World
Zionist Organization (the Zionist Conference) convenes in London. The first
large Zionist gathering after the war, participants include representatives
of countries defeated in the war (Germany, Austria, etc.). Discussions relating
to settlements in Eretz Israel take place and Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation
Fund), a vital overseas funding mechanism of the WZO, is founded. Weizmann
is elected President of the WZO. There is a rift between Weizmann and Brandeis.
Brandeis wants to build the Yishuv in Eretz Israel on economic foundations
and objects to the preoccupation with ideological and cultural matters in
Palestine and the Diaspora.
1920, December 24: Official declaration on the Keren Hayesod
foundation in London.
1921, September 1 – 14: The 12th Zionist Congress
convenes in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia, the first to be held in eight years
(since World War I). The Congress approves the decision of the London Zionist
Conference the previous year to found Keren Hayesod and acquire large tracks
of land in the Jezreel Valley.
1923, August 5 – 16: The Thirteenth Zionist Congress
convenes in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia. On the agenda: settlement activity in
Eretz Israel, the activities of Keren Hayesod, the opening of a university
in Jerusalem and the plan to establish the Jewish Agency.
1923, End of December: the Third Aliyah to Eretz Israel
ends, having brought 34,000 Jews to Palestine, many of whom were pioneers.
A serious social and economic crisis hits the Jewish Yishuv because of reduced
government activity (especially road-building). There is increased yerida
from Palestine. Keren Hayesod provides funding for the country's first two
absorption centers for olim from the Third Aliyah. It takes upon itself the
funding of Yishuv's education network and builds a village which serves as
a refuge for orphans of the Ukrainian pogroms. At the same time it finances
settlements areas, the health service, development, infrastructure and industry.
1926, September: Keren Hayesod headquarters are moved from
London to Jerusalem.
1946, December 9-24: The settler's institutes, headed by
Jewish Agency and Keren Hayesod, establish 25 new settlements, the largest
number established in one year up until the founding of the state.
1948, March 11: 12 people are killed in a car explosion
in the courtyard of the Zionist National Institutions. Leib Jaffe, Keren Hayesod's
Director General, was one of the victims.
1967, October: In an emergency Appeal conducted by Keren
Hayesod, the unprecedented sum of 300 million dollars is raised.
1973, October: In 1973, some 55,000 olim arrive in Israel,
despite the war and the state of emergency in effect two months after the
war. Sixty percent of the olim are from the Soviet Union – a record
number from this country. In an emergency Keren Hayesod campaign conducted
between October and the year's end, 300 million dollars are raised.
1978, December: World Jewry responds to the government of
Israel's call to finance a neighborhood rehabilitation campaign. For 15 years
Keren Hayesod will invest more than 160 million dollars in rehabilitating
35 underprivileged neighborhoods throughout the country.
1987, December 6-10: The Thirty-first Zionist Congress convenes
in Jerusalem and calls all the Jewish, Zionist and other Appeals connected
in some way to Israel, to preserve, support and strengthen the senior status
of Keren Hayesod as an expression of the centrality of Israel in the life
of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
1990, December: Keren Hayesod marks 70 years to its founding,
while operation Exodus – the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of
Jews from the former Soviet Union is getting underway.
2001, December: The Jewish Agency, together with Keren Hayesod,
the United Jewish Communities and the government of Israel, initiate the confrontation
Line project. It is a three-year plan and involves an investment of 80 million
dollar aid settlements and individuals living near Israel's confrontation
lines, following the withdrawal of IDF forces from Lebanon.
2002, January: At the initiative of the Jewish Agency, the
State of Israel Jewish Agency agrees to encourage aliyah from Argentina, France
and South Africa. The Jewish Agency prepares for increased Aliyah, especially
from Argentina due to the harsh economic situation there. Keren Hayesod partially
funds these operations.