Last update - 00:00 28/02/2008
U.S. Jews' opposition holds up Jewish Agency deal with Christian group
By Anshel Pfeffer
Opposition from Jewish community federations in the United States is hindering the implementation of an agreement between the Jewish Agency and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, under which the IFCJ was to double its donations to the agency.
According to the agreement, signed two months ago, the IFCJ - a body that promotes Christian support of Israel - is to donate $45 million to agency projects over the next three years. In return, the IFCJ's founder and president, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, is to be a voting member of the agency's executive board and budget committee.
The agreement, doubling the IFCJ's former level of donations, has raised objections from the agency's main donors in the U.S., where federation leaders have complained of not having been consulted by the Jewish Agency's chairman before he signed the agreement with the IFCJ.
At first, the main objections were due to reports that a Christian representative would become a member of the agency's board of governors, but it emerged that only Eckstein would serve, representing his Christian Evangelist donors. The main sticking point now is the stipulation in the agreement that the IFCJ would be accorded the status of a funding partner, the same as that of the United Jewish Communities and Keren Hayesod.
The IFCJ demand that on every new project inaugurated by Jewish Agency, their donation will be acknowledged on the signposts and posters, just as the UJC and Keren Hayesod are. But in the last two months, due to pressure from senior board members of the Chicago and New York federations, the agency has not added the IFCJ logo to signposts at new projects, such as the reinforcement of buildings in Sderot, to which IFCJ contributed.
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