To the Editor:
Israel’s people, in contrast to American Jews, contribute comparatively little to general Jewish NGOs such as the Jewish Agency. Regarding the agency, many of its operations are now a part of the Israeli government.
If the Jewish Agency needs to raise funds, it should make a greater effort from sources other than Jewish federations, which have an ever-increasing job in creating and sustaining a general Jewish community in the various diasporas. Certainly this is true in America. The cost of giving Jewish children a Jewish education in most cases has prevented working-class Jews from considering this option.
In Los Angeles, the JCC is a shadow of its former self as center after center has closed. The last JCC in the San Fernando Valley, which has the seventh largest Jewish population among Jewish population centers in the U.S., will become a Jewish high school. That will leave only one JCC, an old building in an area where not many Jews still reside, operating in the entire Los Angeles area. So the federation has other priorities, more immediate, affecting its own community.
Jerry Blaz
Tarzana, Calif.
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