Jewish Agency for Israel
The Jewish Agency for Israel, formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization.
As an organization, it encourages immigration of Jews in diaspora to the Land of Israel, and oversees their integration with the State of Israel. Since 1948, the Jewish Agency claims to have brought 3 million immigrants to Israel, where it offers them transitional housing in "absorption centers" throughout the country. David Ben-Gurion served as the chairman of its executive committee from 1935, and in this capacity on 14 May 1948, he proclaimed Israel's independence, following which he served as the first Israeli prime minister. In the years preceding the founding of Israel, the Jewish Agency oversaw the establishment of about 1,000 towns and villages in the British Mandate of Palestine. The organization serves as the main link between Israel and Jewish communities around the world.
By law, the Jewish Agency is a parastatal organization, but does not receive core funding from the Israeli government. The Jewish Agency is funded by the Jewish Federations of North America, Keren Hayesod, major Jewish communities and federations, and foundations and donors from Israel and around the world. In 2008, the Jewish Agency won the Israel Prize for its historical contribution to Israel and to the Jewish community worldwide.
History
Name
Established as the in 1908, the organization became the Zionist Commission, later Palestine Zionist Executive, which was designated in 1929 as the "Jewish agency" provided for in the League of Nations' Palestine Mandate and was thus again renamed as The Jewish Agency for Palestine. After the establishment of the State it received its current name, The Jewish Agency for Israel.1908–1928: Beginnings as an arm of the World Zionist Organization
The Jewish Agency began as the Palestine Office, founded in Jaffa in 1908, as the operational branch of the Zionist Organization in Ottoman-controlled Palestine under the leadership of Arthur Ruppin. The main tasks of the Palestine Office were to represent the Jews of Palestine in dealings with the Turkish sultan and other foreign dignitaries, to aid Jewish immigration, and to buy land for Jews to settle in.The Palestine Office was established under the inspiration of Theodor Herzl's vision for a solution to "the Jewish question": the issue of anti-Semitism and the place of Jews in the world. In his pamphlet "The Jewish State," Herzl envisioned the Jewish people settled as an independent nation on its own land, taking its place among the other nation-states of the world. The Palestine Office, which eventually became the Jewish Agency, was based upon Herzl's organizational ideas for how to bring a Jewish state into being.
The influx of Jews to Palestine on the Second Aliyah made the purchase of land particularly urgent. With the aid of the Jewish National Fund, the Palestine Office bought land for newcomers in two locations: Chavat Kinneret, and Kibbutz Ruhama. Kibbutz Ruhama was specifically designated for Russian Jews from the Second Aliyah. Over the following decades, the Palestine Office established hundreds more moshavim and kibbutzim throughout Palestine. The Palestine Office continued to purchase land together with JNF.
With the outbreak of World War I, the anticipated disintegration of the Ottoman Empire raised hopes among Zionists for increased Jewish immigration and eventual sovereignty in Palestine. In 1918, the United Kingdom conquered the region and it fell under British military rule.
Following the promulgation of the pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the British Zionist Federation formed the Zionist Commission in March 1918 to go to Palestine and make recommendations to the British government. The Commission reached Palestine on 14 April 1918 and proceeded to study conditions and to report to the British government, and was active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine. Weizmann was instrumental in restructuring the ZO's Palestine office into departments for agriculture, settlement, education, land, finance, immigration, and statistics. The Palestine Office was merged into the Zionist Commission, headed by Chaim Weizmann.
On 25 April 1920, the Principal Allied Powers agreed at the San Remo conference to allocate the Ottoman territories to the victorious powers and assigned Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq as Mandates to Britain, with the Balfour Declaration being incorporated into the Palestine Mandate. The League of Nations formally approved these mandates in 1922. Article 4 of the Mandate provided for "the recognition of an appropriate Jewish agency as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish National Home and the interests of the Jewish population of Palestine." The ZO leaders had contributed to the drafting of the Mandate. In November 1921, the Zionist Commission became the Palestine Zionist Executive and was designated as the Jewish agency for Palestine for the purpose of Article 4 of the Palestine Mandate.
In 1921 Ze'ev Jabotinsky was elected to the executive but he resigned in 1923, accusing Weizmann of not being vigorous enough with the Mandatory Government. Other issues between the Revisionists and the agency were the distribution of entry permits, Weizmann's support for the Zionist Labour Movement, and the proposal to expand the agency. The Revisionists broke completely with agency in 1935, but rejoined ZO in 1947. In 1951 the ZO/JA included all Zionist organizations except Herut.
The Palestine Zionist Executive was charged with facilitating Jewish immigration to Palestine, land purchase, and planning the general policies of the Zionist leadership. It ran schools and hospitals, and formed a defence force, the Haganah. Chaim Weizmann was the leader of both the World Zionist Organization and the Palestine Zionist Executive until 1929. The arrangement enabled the ZO to issue entry permits to new immigrants.
Jewish Agency for Palestine 1929–1948
Non-Zionists representation
In 1929, the Palestine Zionist Executive was renamed, restructured and officially inaugurated as The Jewish Agency for Palestine by the 16th Zionist Congress, held in Zürich, Switzerland. The new body was larger and included a number of Jewish non-Zionist individuals and organizations, who were interested in Jewish settlement in Palestine. They were philanthropic rather than political, and many opposed talk of a Jewish State. With this broader Jewish representation, the Jewish Agency for Palestine was recognized by the British in 1930, in lieu of the Zionist Organization, as the appropriate Jewish agency under the terms of the Mandate. The 16th Zionist Congress determined that in the event of the future dissolution of the agency, the World Zionist Organization would replace it as representative of the Jews for the purpose of the Mandate.There was strong opposition within the ZO when the idea of enlargement of the board of governors of the Jewish Agency was first raised in 1924 to include non-Zionist Jews, and the idea was accepted by the Zionist Congress only in 1927.
Even though non-Zionists took part in the agency, it was still closely tied to the Zionist Organization. The president of the ZO served as the chair of the Executive Council and the Assembly of the Jewish Agency, and half of the members of the agency's governing bodies were chosen by the ZO, ensuring a unified policy and close cooperation between the two organizations. The change was Chaim Weizmann's initiative and was established on the principle of parity between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews working together in the building of a Jewish national home.
Those participating included Sholem Asch, H.N. Bialik, Leon Blum, Albert Einstein, Immanuel Löw, Lord Melchett and Herbert Samuel. American non-Zionists received 44 of the 112 seats allotted to non-Zionists. The British Board of Deputies joined as a constituent body.
Weizmann was criticized for being too pro-British. When the 1930 White Paper was published recommending restricting Jewish immigration, his position became untenable and he resigned from the ZO and the Jewish Agency. He protested that the British had betrayed their commitment expressed in the Balfour Declaration and that he could no longer work with them. Nahum Sokolow, who had been elected to succeed Weizmann, remained in his position. Arthur Ruppin succeeded Sokolow as chairman of the Jewish Agency in 1933 and David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok joined the executive. In 1935, Ben-Gurion was elected chairman of the agency to succeed Ruppin.
In 1937 The Peel Commission published its report into the disturbances of the year before. For the first time, partition and the setting up of a Jewish State was recommended. The 1937 Zionist Congress rejected the commission's conclusions, a majority insisting that the Balfour Declaration referred to all of Palestine and Transjordan, but the executive was authorized to continue exploring what the "precise terms" were. This decision revealed differences within the Jewish Agency, with the non-Zionists disagreeing with the decision and some calling for a conference of Jews and Arabs.
In 1947 the last non-Zionist member of the Jewish Agency, Werner Senator, resigned and while the 50 percent participation of non-Zionists in the Agency before had not worked in practice, the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization now became de facto identical.
Organization
From 1929 to 1948, the Jewish Agency was organized into four departments: the Government Department ; the Security Department; the Aliyah Department, and the Education Department. The Jewish Agency Executive included David Ben-Gurion as chairman, and Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon and Yitzhak Gruenbaum, among others.The Jewish Agency was housed in a fortress-like building in the Rehavia neighborhood of Jerusalem. The land for the Rehavia neighborhood had been purchased in 1922 by the Palestine Land Development Corporation, and construction of the Jewish Agency headquarters was paid for by the ZO. The three-winged structure with a large open courtyard was designed by Yochanan Rattner. Along with the Jewish Agency it also houses the headquarters of the JNF and Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal.