At the beginning of 1998, Moshe Rivlin stepped down as chairman of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) board of directors after twenty-one years in office. Two people replaced him: Yehiel Leket of the One Israel party, who had lost the election for heading the Jewish Agency to Avraham Burg, and Shlomo Gravetz, from Nahalat Jabotinsky, the original core of the Betar movement, and head of the Jewish Agency's Youth and Hehalutz department.
Why are there two people in one position (chairman and co-chairman)? Because the two major political parties both wanted the position and failed to reach a compromise solution. An arrangement was made whereby Shlomo Gravetz would serve as chairman for the first two years of a four-year term, with Yehiel Leket at his side as co-chairman, and at the beginning of 2000 they would rotate.
Consequently, for over two years, JNF has had two chairmen, each earning salaries higher than that of the Prime Minister, and each with an office that includes all the trimmings, including a secretary and chauffeur. On entering office, they both overhauled their offices, and another renovation was recently completed, all for the purpose of not, heaven forbid, having an office inferior to the other's.
An exchange of correspondence shows that the two cultivate orderly working arrangements between themselves. Overseas trips, which are not infrequent, are approved by the chairman.
Former chairman Rivlin, who vacated the position for them, did not remain unemployed. He was appointed immediately as JNF president, a previously non-existent position, and, naturally, according him the right to an office with all the trimmings: secretary, chauffeur, company car and an expense account in Israel and overseas.
Blue box still clinking
The more mature among us no doubt remember how the classroom tutor would pass along the aisles every Friday as part of the Sabbath welcoming ceremony, with a JNF blue box in his or her hand, collecting agorot from students for redemption of the land. Today, several decades later, the redemption has long been completed. JNF, on the other hand, continues to exist and maintain a sizeable well-greased mechanism.
JNF owns 17% of State land, about 2.6 million dunam (0.515 million acres). This makes the organization the largest landowner in the country. Most of the land is agricultural, and only a small part is located in the large towns. The agorot collected from children in Israel helped towards the purchase of these lands, aided by larger donations of Jews throughout the world.
Some land was transferred to JNF (at particularly low prices),
after it was requisitioned by the State, in a process that began with the end of the War of Independence.
Since 1960, all JNF land has been managed by the Israel Land Administration, which pays annual leasing fees to JNF from the rent it collects from users. The sums transferred are both for purchased and requisitioned land.
JNF's annual budget currently amounts to NIS 1 billion. NIS 800 million comes from leasing the redeemed land and another NIS 200 million from donations from those for whom the blue box still has some meaning.
Another important point is that JNF does not pay income tax. In the past, it was exempted from paying purchase tax (which was revoked), and the organization's leaders are currently fighting the Minister of Finance over the right to receive exemption from sales tax also (which replaced purchase tax at the beginning of the year). In recent years, JNF has enjoyed large profits as a result of the changes in designation of agricultural land for construction.
What does it do with all that money? It hardly purchases land any more. On the other hand, trees are planted, water reservoirs are built, playgrounds are set up, and mostly, the large mechanism is perpetuated. Salaries are paid and various (and strange) projects are budgeted, including some that are as remote from land redemption as the East is from the West.
Begin, Jabotinsky and the Baba Sali
In an interview with "Globes" on taking office at the beginning of 1998, Gravetz said, "This is a wonderful institution which the public hardly knows, and I admit that I am not sufficiently familiar with it. We'll uncover it. We've nothing to hide and everything to be proud of… I hope the new leadership will take a good part in making history."
The best way to take part in making history appears to be the allocation of money to concerns devoid of any real connection to JNF activity, but with close-knit ties to the ideology of the organization's head. And, until the beginning of 2000, as long as no clearly defined criteria on distribution existed, nothing was easier than to put one's hand in the coffers and allocate the contents.
At the beginning of November 1999, Gravetz wrote to Petachia Shamir, chairman of the Irgun Soldiers Alliance, "It is my pleasure to advise you that JNF management has approved NIS 50,000 for the completion of the Etzel Museum, which will be forwarded at the beginning of 2000. Regarding the custom of paying you for hosting JNF groups, management has decided to allocate NIS 50,000 for maintenance purposes, and NIS 25,000 for hosting JNF groups."
On the very same day, Gravetz also wrote to Tamir Peleg, chairman of the Jabotinsky Institute in Israel, "I am pleased and proud of the approval by JNF management of a budget of NIS 50,000 for 1999."
In 1999, JNF participated in a third of the overall cost, $660,000, of setting up a public park in memory of the late Minister of Finance Yitzhak Modai. While it is true that JNF's purpose is to plant trees, out of all the places in Israel it decided to invest the above sum in Tel Aviv, and in the prosperous northern side of the town.
Another fascinating donation was made for an enormous park in Netivot, adjacent to the grave of the Baba Sali, which his son, Baruch Abuhatzeira, turned into a flourishing business, selling cameos and bottles of holy water. In order to gather donators to invest in the park, JNF distributed thousands of cameos in the form of a little book of Psalms from the Holy Scriptures, bound on one side with "Baba Sali", and on the reverse, "JNF".
Shortly afterwards, JNF, under Gravetz, donated NIS 50,000 to the Beitar Jerusalem football team, taken from a budget for "development of work in overseas organizations" . At the request of deputy chairman Haim Cohen, NIS 77,000 were also found in this budget item for a donation to the Brit Shalom synagogue in Beit Shemesh, in which his father used to pray.
A JNF emissary in a western country says that during his stay, he collected money for a nursery in moshav Shahar, a playground in Eilat, a project for land desalination in the Arava region, and other projects, "all based on the project seeker's close association with JNF leaders".
Only towards the end of last year was a decision finally taken on the criteria for JNF management's allocations committee.
Viewing the Negev from Paris
Not only the two chairmen travel all over the world. In January this year, twelve people flew on behalf of JNF to Paris for a European conference of the organization's emissaries. At the time, many JNF employees complained about the insensitivity of sending a delegation of twelve to Paris, shortly after management implemented a downsizing program and 1,000 employees were laid off.
We sought JNF's response to this article, which stated: "The European conference in Paris was held for all JNF leaders, branch managers of the various countries and emissaries, to agree upon an operative program for increasing fundraising campaigns and activities in Europe. Conferences of this nature are held annually, alternating in Israel and overseas. All fundraising organizations hold such conferences."
Special terms for controller
Meir Segev is the controller of JNF, the person entrusted with ensuring orderly administration at the organization. This evidently does not guarantee that he himself does not benefit from special status.
The 1998 World Zionist Organization (WZO) report, which relates also to JNF, found that approval was given for subsidizing Segev's law studies at a college of higher education. So far, so good, but a college document specifically stipulates that, due to the study program and the hours required for home preparation, full-time work in addition to the studies is impossible.
The WZO report states, "Despite this stipulation, his participation in the studies was approved, alongside his regular work, and the overtime ceiling of 70 hours, to which he has the right, was not reduced."
Another anecdote from the same report: Three JNF employees studied at the same Open University course in general Bachelor of Arts studies. One was given approval for 60% of the course fees, another 70%, and the third, employed in the chairman's office, received a 90% subsidy.
Fund for friends
In Spring 1999, JNF published a tender for the position of director of the Youth and Education division. The tender stated that a candidate with an academic degree "was preferable". How can the director of the education division not be a university graduate?
The much-sought-after position, for which many talented people submitted their candidacy, was eventually filled by Youth and Hehalutz department director Yitzhak Mupsik, a friend of Gravetz, who had previously worked with him. Mupsik immediately started with 23 years' seniority, plus 30% for service at national institutions and a company car. Moreover, he receives a special personal supplement of NIS 2,500 for completion of his university studies. This means that, not only did a lack of a university education not prevent Mupsik from competing for the office, it won him a special payment to complete his studies.
JNF: We donate to everyone
In response to this article, JNF issued the following statement: "Claims that we transfer funds to organizations and entities associated with the Likud are incorrect. JNF donates to a wide spectrum of similar projects, all of which represent the history of resettlement in Israel. The decisions regarding donations are made by a special allocations committee consisting of ten people, among them JNF board of directors members, that acts according to set criteria.
"The Etzel museum is an integral part of Jabotinsky Park, which is a JNF park. JNF's management also approved participation in other commemorative sites, such as the Yigal Alon museum, the Ammunition Hill museum, the Armored Corps museum in Latrun, and others. Regarding the transfer of NIS 50,000 for hosting, this is budgeted transfer to the museum for financing JNF groups visiting the site.
Former Tel Aviv mayor Roni Milo approached JNF with a request for assistance in setting up a park in honor of the late President Haim Herzog, for an overall sum of $660,000. Due to reason unconnected with JNF, the project did not materialize, and current mayor Ron Huldai proposed naming the park after Yitzhak Modai. Modai's family, including his widow, Michal, who is WIZO World president and a member of the WZO presidium, were in contact with JNF and participated in realizing the project.
"JNF did not donate funds to the Beitar Jerusalem football team, but transferred NIS 50,000 in payment for a huge billboard placed in the stadium, advertising Jerusalem Park. A commitment to assist the Bet Shemesh synagogue was made by the previous JNF management, which the new management decided to honor."
"The senior employee (Meir Segev - DT) whose law studies were financed by JNF, worked full-time during his studies. Approval of the studies was given at all levels, including the special board of directors committee."
Gravetz: I've been wrongly accused
"Everything stated here does me an injustice and I do not understand why," Gravetz says. "I implemented one of the biggest revolutions at JNF, which was a corrupt and outdated organization. I laid off 1,400 employees, I cleaned up all the filth that collected under Rivlin's term of office and determined public criteria for the first time. That is perhaps the reason for the anger and why they are conspiring against me.
"We help various organizations, and not only those with which I am associated politically. The NIS 600,000 we donated to the Begin Foundation is small change compared with the other investments.
"As for Yitzhak Mupsik, he was director of the Youth and Hehalutz department for five and a half years, and handled a budget five times the size of ours. A tender was published and he won it. He's made dramatic changes. So what if he's my friend and we worked together previously? I think he's very talented, and that's that."
Time to say goodbye to JNF
Serving in addition to the two chairmen of the JNF board of directors, are full-time deputy chairman Haim Cohen (formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs David Levy's chauffeur), along with managing director Yitzhak Eliashiv and a host of other senior directors.
The board of directors consists of 36 members, appointed by the Zionist Council according to a party key representing the political map on the establishment of the State, almost without taking into account political developments since then.
"The organization operates according to ludicrous party lines, and the only function it serves is to perpetuate itself and the titbits it hands out to those close to it, old boys of the establishment, who will never agree to give up the golden goose," says Israel Land Administration (ILA) director Avi Drexler. Drexler has been in serious confrontation with JNF leaders for a long time. "Even if Shas, for example, receives 50 Knesset seats, and the Prime Minister is elected on the votes of a single party, it won't change the representation in the JNF. It's an outdated, useless organization, and most of its budget is wasted on salaries and entertaining."
Haifa University School of Law lecturer Dr. Alexander (Sandy) Kedar also speaks out against the influence JNF wields over utilization of State lands. "Although JNF lands account for only one sixth of ILA land, eleven of the twenty members of the ILA board of directors are appointed by JNF, based on the arrangement set in 1960. Representatives of WIZO and synagogues thereby determine the most crucial questions of the State's existence. These are the people who made the decisions 533, 666 and 727 allowing moshavim to build neighborhoods on agricultural land and collect huge sums of money for mediation of these lands.
"A glance at the board of directors' composition is all that is needed to explain why this was permitted. Six JNF representatives are kibbutz and moshav members, with an obvious interest regarding these lands. It's no wonder ILA policy discriminates against Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews, and harms the weaker classes.
"Another absurdity is the fact that the mechanism through which the country's citizens pay land leasing fees to JNF comes under no regulatory supervision. Even the State Comptroller has no jurisdiction over it. The situation defies all democratic principles. No elections are held in JNF, nobody knows exactly what it represents, yet in spite of this, it receives NIS 800 million from the public.
"Fifty years after the State's establishment, the time has come for the elected government to manage the country's lands, not concerns which bypass democratic mechanisms."
Published by Israel's Business Arena on March 29, 2000