Leaders of the workers’ committee of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) regularly abuse their power, providing heavily discounted apartment rentals and other benefits to insiders and pressuring employees to vote in Likud primaries, Channel 12 reported Tuesday.

Following the investigation on the “Hamevaker” television program, KKL-JNF said its new management, which took office earlier this year, is conducting a thorough investigation of the organization’s conduct in recent years.

The KKL-JNF workers’ committee, led by Israel Goldstein, denied the reported charges, saying the allegations were “baseless and do not reflect the facts.”

The investigation found that KKL-JNF’s workers’ committee maintains a “secret reservoir” of dozens of buildings and hundreds of apartments in high-demand areas around the country, including on Zamenhof Street in Tel Aviv’s pricey city center. The properties are rented out at heavily discounted prices to insiders, including to Goldstein’s family, the report found.

The 125-year-old organization, which owns 12% of the land in the State of Israel, earns some NIS 6 billion a year from the sale and rental of land, the report said. Buttressed by this windfall, KKL-JNF’s workforce grew by 32% over five years, from 953 to 1,264 employees, largely with political appointments of associates and relatives of figures in Likud, the Histadrut, and internal JNF leadership, it charged.

These employees enjoy exceptionally high salaries, subsidized vacations, and scholarships for their children, thanks to a workers’ committee budget of some NIS 7........

© The Times of Israel