The Israeli town of Arad will soon be able to offer employment to as many as 100 area residents, thanks in part to a Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey initiative. The federation's board of directors recently appropriated $100,000 to refurbish a government building in Arad, a project that will create much-needed jobs for the struggling Negev community.

Arad is the JFCNJ's sister city in the Partnership 2000 program that links Israeli and Diaspora communities for cultural exchange and economic development. JFCNJ is part of a cluster of several other NJ federations and one in Delaware that are partnered with Arad and the Tamar region in the Negev. Arad has a population of 28,000 people - about 40 percent of them immigrants - and 11 percent unemployment.

One of the area's chief industries - Dead Sea tourism - has been decimated in the past two years as fewer and fewer people travel to the strife-torn country. Now it is hoped that the creation of the call center, essentially a customer-service operation for Israel's second-largest insurance company, will create roughly 100 new jobs, according to JFCNJ executive vice president Stanley Stone. The federation appropriation came from its Israel Emergency Campaign, which has contributed close to $1 million for projects in Israel since November 2001.

"This is one of the most inspiring and optimistic things that has occurred in the area in the past two and a half years," said Monica Zelinger, regional director for the Jewish Agency for Israel, which oversees the Partnership project. Speaking to NJ Jewish News from her office in Israel, Zelinger said, "It gives us hope that good things can still happen, even to an isolated desert area like Arad."

She explained that several families, faced with job losses and reluctant to accept financial aid for food and shelter, have left the region. The call center will help other families stay in Arad. Under the program, the Israeli government will contribute about $4.8 million over five years and provide tax breaks to assist in establishing the center. JFCNJ's $100,000 contribution will go toward refurbishing the building that will house the call center; the building is owned by the Arad municipal government.

"While we are putting new security fences and gates around our nurseries, kindergartens, and schools, we feel a solemn mood hanging over our city," wrote Arad Mayor Bezalel Tabib in a letter to JFCNJ asking for support for the project. "The math is clear; many new immigrants as well as Israeli-born citizens of Arad are unemployed. We need your help, and now we have the opportunity to employ many of our citizens with the new 'calling center' and to help them stand up straight and be proud that they live in 'Eretz Yisrael.'"

The IMM Insurance Agency Ltd. - or Hachi Yashir, as it is known - serves other insurance companies by issuing policies, collecting premiums, and processing policy changes and claims. Among its three principals is a former New Jerseyan, Stuart Schapiro, who made aliya from Teaneck in 1994, according to David Mulgrum of Bernardsville. Mulgrum, who chairs the Partnership program's economic development subcommittee, took part in the investigation of the IMM company for federation board members.

"It's a thrill for me, as chair of the committee and as a federation board member, to help approve the call center appropriation," Mulgrum said. "This is one of the best examples we've had of what the partnership program is about.

"People in Arad, he added, "are thrilled about it. "IMM has agreed to establish a telephone answering and customer-support center in Arad, which will employ more than 80 workers in full staff positions for a minimum of five years. In return, the Israeli Ministry of Commerce and Industry has agreed to help the company with $4.8 million in government assistance over the next five years.

Connecting Hachi Yashir with Arad was accomplished through the intensive efforts of the Arad Economic Corporation, headed by Topaz Karmi, working with the Jewish Agency for Israel, Tabib, and other municipal officials. IMM is expected to begin its employee search among residents of Arad within the next few weeks. Stone called creating jobs for the Israelis the "highest form of tzedaka."

Gerald Flanzbaum of Warren, who heads up the New Jersey-Delaware federation cluster's Partnership 2000 committee, said the call center plan for Arad is "a very big deal," adding that it gives the community a psychological and economic lift. "Hopefully," he added, "it's just the beginning."

As first appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News.

Adar Aleph 5763 - March 2003