"Emergency Appeal is Underway"
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
The Israel Emergency Fund of the United Jewish Appeal was created in June 1967 amid the Six Day War. The Pittsburgh campaign was announced by the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh on June 7, 1967 and raised more than $500,000 within its first 12 hours in increments between $10 and $100,000.
Prompted by events including the attack against Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics in Munich in 1972 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Israel Emergency Fund (IEF) became a major component of the United Jewish Federation budget through the 1970s, accounting for more than half of all distributions in some years. In the early 1970s, the IEF also became associated with emerging efforts to assist Soviet Jewry, as many Jewish families in the former Soviet Union attempted to immigrate to Israel. By the end of the 1970s, the IEF had begun to decrease as a percentage of annual distributions but has been revived as needed amid conflicts in Israel throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
