October 22, 2006

By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER

A building damaged by a Katyusha in Nahariya. Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski [file]

The Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting opens on Sunday in Jerusalem, but a major focus of the three-day conference will be the situation in the North.

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The board's many members from overseas will tour areas affected by the Katyushas that rained down over the summer, including visits with Ethiopian immigrants at an absorption center in Nahariya, stops at an underground bomb shelter in Acre where Jews and Arabs stayed together during the war, and trips to communities, such as the Druse village of Horfesh, whose children were sent south to summer camps thanks to the Jewish Agency.

Back in Jerusalem, the board will be considering the 2007 budget, discussed in June and set to be approved here.

But much of the behind-the-scenes activity will be devoted to wrangling over who is likely to replace Board of Governors Chairwoman Carole Solomon, whose four-year term will conclude next year.

Names making the rounds include Richie Pearlstone of Colorado, a former chairman of the agency's budget and finance committee, and Jane Sherman, the co-chair of the Israel committee and the daughter of the influential Jewish philanthropist Max Fisher.

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