American Mizrachi Convention Concludes; $2,000,000 Budget Adopted; Churgin Re-elected

Dr. Pinkhos Churgin was re-elected president of the Mizrachi Organization of American here last night at the concluding session of the 30th annual convention of the organization. Earlier, the 1,000 delegates from all parts of this country and Canada adopted a $2,000,000 budget for 1951 and approved a series of resolutions providing for the expansion of Mizrachi activities in this country and Israel and calling for U.S. aid to the Jewish state.

The delegates adopted a resolution urging the U.S. Government to include Israel in the American program of aid to democratic countries. It asked a grant-in-aid” commensurate with its (Israel’s) needs and its role as democracy’s friend in the Middle East. Another resolution called upon President Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson to initiate direct peace talks between Israel and the Arab states, charging that the Arabs were maintaining tension in the Middle East by economic blockade and refusal to negotiate peace.

The convention also pledged maximum aid to the United Jewish Appeal and assistance in carrying out the Washington conference’s recommendation to raise $1,000,000,000 for Israel in three years. The delegates asked the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds and its affiliates to limit new local construction to minimum needs and allocate the greatest possible share of philanthropic funds to the Israel rehabilitation program.

Adoption of the organization’s $2,000,000 budget will permit the construction of a Mizrachi college in Israel, expansion of the Mizrachi educational system there and the establishment of Mizrachi middle class settlements and cooperatives in the Jewish state. The organization will spend $500,000 for youth education in this country and will raise $1,000,000 for the Jewish National Fund in 1951.

Addressing the convention last night, Leon Gellman, chairman of the world Mizrachi movement, said that there must be a change in the “passive and apathetic interest” in Israel by Jews outside that state. He reproached Jewish communities outside Israel for failing to respond “with appropriate enthusiasm and adequate appreciation of the miracles” which have come with the establishment of the Jewish state.

Rabbi Wolf Gold, member of the Jewish Agency executive told the convention that the Religious Bloc in Israel has no intention whateoever of imposing its ideas or conceptions of Judaism upon other segments of the population. However, he advocated that the Sabbath be officially and lawfully recognized as the day of rest for the entire Jewish population in Israel.