Page 109 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Keren Hayesod's head office is in the National Institutions Building in Jerusalem. It is responsible for implementing the policy of Keren Hayesod by assisting, guiding and coordinating fundraising activities throughout the world. It is comprised of four regions that supervise its representative, who are entrusted with fundraising and donor relations, as well as the departments that handle planning, management, coordination and provision of services for the various collection offices: financial control and administration, public relations, plans for delegation and visitors, regional and international seminars.
Keren Hayesod does not view collection of the funds as a goal in itself, but rather as a way to strengthen ties and partnerships between the Jewish communities throughout the world and the State of Israel. To that end, Keren Hayesod works diligently to organize cultural and educational enterprises in the communities and encourage young leaders to visit Israel and forge ties with its leaders and residents.
Jewish National Council
The final resident of the building – and the smallest in comparison to the other institutions – must be spoken of in the past tense. That is the Jewish National Council. It had no wing of its own in the National Institutions Building, and was a quasi-subtenant in the Keren Hayesod Wing.
The Jewish National Council, or in its full name the Jewish National Council for the Knesset of Israel, was a quasi-government for the Jewish Yishuv during the Mandatory Period, and was even recognized as such by the Government of Palestine. It drew its authority from the Assembly of Representatives, which is somewhat comparable to the Knesset of the present.
The first Assembly of Representatives was elected in 1920 in the general elections held in the small Jewish Yishuv, and it represented all the groups and parties of those days. The Assembly elected an executive body – the Jewish National Council. The Assembly of Representatives convened only infrequently and its influence was not great. During the Mandate Period, only three additional elections were held for the Assembly of Representatives, in, 1925, 1931 and 1944. The Jewish National Council that was reelected after each election, served quite independently for many long years.
The Jewish National Council had encountered throughout its years, particularly in the Thirties and Forties, two serious problems: The first – it was the "little brother" and the least influential of the Jewish "National Institutions" in the Land of Israel and it initially faced the Zionist Executive and from 1929 the Jewish Agency; and the second – it had no financial resources of its own, and it relied upon allocations it received from the institutions of the Zionist Movement and the collections it periodically conducted.
The division of work between it and the Jewish Agency clearly demarcated the seniority of the Agency, since it engaged in and handled the "weighty" issues such as foreign affairs, security,
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