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Among the other significant developments that came at the three-day meeting of the federation umbrella body:

*The CJF executive committee unanimously approved a plan to form a joint operating partnership with the United Jewish Appeal. That plan will be subject to a national vote via satellite next month.

*CJF committed the federations to provide $20 million over two years toward a special $46 million campaign being mounted by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to ease the hunger of elderly Jews in the former Soviet Union.

*Extensive discussions were held to examine the federations' relationship with the Jewish Agency for Israel amid growing frustration with the agency's efficiency.

In deciding to double funding to a wide range of religious institutions in Israel, federation leaders made it clear they needed to be able to tell donors back home that the fund-raising system is countering growing threats to non-Orthodox Judaism there.

Alarm has soared throughout the federation world in the wake of the Knesset's recent preliminary passage of legislation that would reinforce exclusive Orthodox control over conversions performed in Israel.

During the CJF gathering here, communal leaders reported that anger at Israel over such actions was threatening contributions to the federation campaign and would reverberate through U.S.-Israeli relations.

Michael Belman, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said one donor rescinded his $50,000 pledge because he did not want his money going to Israel and instead distributed it to five local agencies.

"This thing is going to grow," Belman warned.

Norman Tilles of Providence, R.I. agreed. "The issue of religious pluralism will exacerbate the trend for more money to stay locally and less to go overseas," said Tilles, national president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

The redirection of donations, he added, will prompt Congress to reconsider $80 million it gives to the Jewish Agency for refugee resettlement "and billions to Israel when the American Jewish community is cutting back."

But federation leaders also stressed that CJF should stop dealing with threats to religious pluralism on a crisis-by-crisis basis and instead begin educating Israelis about Jewish diversity.

"We have to support those in Israel yearning for religious expression," said Murray Laulicht, president of the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest, N.J.

Laulicht initiated the resolution calling for doubling allocations for projects of the various religious streams in next year's budget of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the campaign's vehicle to fund the religious movements in Israel.

The CJF executive committee unanimously approved the resolution, subject to the review of the CJF committee on pluralism. The Jewish Agency is expected to act on the funding recommendation at its annual assembly in Israel in June.

Currently, the agency spends about $1 million annually each on Reform and Conservative programs, and another $450,000 on Orthodox programs.

The agency's total annual budget is $400 million, with half contributed by the United Jewish Appeal and the federations. Sixty-five percent of its operating budget is spent on immigration and absorption.

UJA, meanwhile, has created new "opportunities" for donors to contribute directly to projects of the various religious movements in Israel, separate from donations to the annual campaign, said Richard Wexler, UJA's national chairman.

CJF's move to back a joint operating partnership with UJA comes on the heels of a similar move last week by UJA's board.

The central Jewish fund-raising campaign for both overseas and local needs is already run jointly by the local federations and the UJA. The partnership calls for an administrative consolidation to save money and increase fund-raising efficiency to boost the campaigns.

At last spring's CJF quarterly meeting, a more comprehensive plan to merge the two organizations collapsed, after complaints that the plan was too radical and did not include enough consultation with local federations.

That plan also called for the two bodies that own the UJA to join the merger. But under the plan approved this week, the United Israel Appeal and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee will remain separate and autonomous.

"Nobody should underestimate the importance of getting our own community-building and fund-raising apparatus in order," said Dr. Conrad Giles, CJF's president.

Such restructuring "will put us in a position to respond better to the needs of our community and of Jews outside our community."