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Reorganization of World Zionist Movement Urged at Canadian Zionist Convention

January 24, 1950
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Calling for a change in the set-up and organization of the World Zionist Organization along non-political lines, Samuel J. Zacks, retiring president of the Zionist Organization of Canada, last night warned delegates to the 30th national convention of imminent peril unless Zionist party lines in countries outside of Israel are wiped out.

In his address before 1,000 delegates, Mr. Zacks said: “The Zionist Organization of Canada resents active interference by the Jewish Agency in the sutonomy of elected bodies. We believe the time has come for a reorganization of the World Zionist Organization and the basis of its constitution, that all parties outside of Israel be abolished, that there be but one federation which shall include all Zinnists who wish to work together for Israel, and that the people of Israel take cognizance of this.”

Justice I.C. Rand of the Supreme Court of Canada told the delegates that “over centuries Jews have shown greater survival powers than any people on earth.” He spoke of his visit to Palestine as a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine and said that no man more impressed him “with substance and strength of a great personality than Dr. Chaim Weizmann.”

In a review of the past 50 years of Canadian Zionism, Samuel Bronfman, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said that the solidarity of Canadian Jewry is an example to Jewish communities throughout the world. Mr. Bronfman reminded delegates that realization of Israel statehood does not complete the task of world Jewry. “Israel must prove to the world that she is worthy of the confidence placed in her by the United Nations,” he said, “and we must help Israel with everything in our power.”

Aubrey S. Eban, permanent delegate of Israel to the United Nations, said that “no power can separate Jerusalem from Israel, they are two living organisms which have grown together. It is a firm and indissoluble union.” He added that Jerusalem cannot be religiously sereme unless it is politically peaceful.

Dr. Emanuel Neumann, former president of the Zionist Organization of America, stated that the Zionist movement was undergoing a serious crisis. Declaring that “it is a fantastic paradox that the moment of Zionism’s greatest triumph should mark the beginning of its decline as a movement,” Dr. Neumann said: “If the Government of Israel disragards the danger signals and fails to invest the World Zionist Organization with the necessary powers and authority, it will hasten the process of decline and disintegration of the movement to the serious detriment of Israel.”

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