Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, today appealed to the members of the Zionist Actions Committee not to reject the proposed status for the world Zionist movement despite the fact that the draft of the status may not be acceptable to some of the members of the Actions Committee.
Dr. Goldmann traced the efforts to gain the approval of the Israeli Government for the text of the status which incorporates the resolutions adopted by the last World Zionist Congress with regard to this question. He pointed out that the Israel Government could not accept the Zionist Organization as “the representative of the Jewish people” because of the strong opposition raised by non-Zionist organizations which are actively engaged in helping Israel.
On the other hand, Dr. Goldmann said, the Zionist movement won for itself the role of being an agency responsible for the development of the country as “the top organization” working in Israel. This, Dr. Goldmann felt, constitutes a satisfactory compromise which will strengthen the Zionist movement and permit the broadening of the Jewish Agency by drawing in non-Zionist groups.
BEN GURION EXPLAINS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OLD AND NEW ZIONISM
Premier David Ben Gurion, addressing the Actions Committee last night, said that he spoke not as the Premier of Israel but just as a Zionist. “Ben Gurion, the Zionist, wholeheartedly supports Premier Ben Gurion’s address in the Knesset last week with regard to the question of granting a special status to the world Zionist movement,” he stated. He emphasized that “yesterday’s Zionism died with the establishment of the Jewish state when a new Zionist was born.”
Mr. Ben Gurion, who spoke in Yiddish, pointed out that “yesterday’s Zionism” fought on two fronts: the internal front combating assimilation and non-Zionist movements, and the external front against the mandatory government in Palestine. “Today’s Zionism means wholehearted support of the entire Jewish nation for the State of Israel,” he said. “We are a drop in the sea of 60,000,000 in an area twice as big as the United States, and our utmost care is the undivided attention of the entire Jewish nation which Zionism of the past did not encompass,” he declared.
“Transition from yesterday’s Zionism to today’s is hard,” Mr. Ben Gurion continued. “I have the greatest reverence for past Zionism, but times change and we must adept ourselves to the new situation which has arisen after the establishment of the state and which calls for new dimensions and new efforts, since the state is now the most tried and tested instrument of the Jewish nation to complete its redemption. The nation has learned already that this state is not a repetition of a false Messiah, but the beginning of a true redemption.”
Mortimer May, American member, asked that the Zionist movement be granted the kind of a legal status by Israel that would give the movement great prestige. Dr. Emanuel Neumann charged that the bill presented by the Israel Government to the Knesset dealing with the granting of a special status for the World Zionist Organization “ignores the real problem of what the status of the Zionist movement will be in the countries outside of Israel.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
