ZOA Charges Azf Stifles Democracy in Elections to Zionist Congress

The American Zionist Federation was assailed today on two fronts by two of its constituent groups. The Zionist Organization of America charged that the AZF was thwarting democratic elections for the 152 delegates from the United States to the World Zionist Congress scheduled in January in Jerusalem. Herman L. Weisman. ZOA president, charged that the mail ballot method chosen by the AZF to elect delegates was “a travesty of the democratic process” and stated that the ZOA had filed an appeal with the World Zionist Court to have that method invalidated.

At the same time, in a separate attack on the AZF, the Americans for Progressive Israel-Hashomer Hatzair, a Socialist-Zionist group which identifies itself ideologically with Mapam in Israel, charged that the AZF “has stifled attempts to invigorate the Zionist movement by a sharp debate of the ideological issues within it” and that it has failed to carry out its mandate given it at the founding conference in May 1970 to invigorate the Jewish community with a deeper consciousness of Zionism and community democracy.

Rabbi Israel Miller, president of the AZF. issued a statement today categorically rejecting “the attack” by Weisman. (See separate story.) It was not immediately known whether he will also answer the allegations by API-HH. Weisman said approval of the AZF’s election method has been made possible by an “illicit agreement” among some American Zionist organizations which he asserted had predetermined the distribution of 76 percent of the 152 delegates. He said the appeal to the Tribunal, a juridical panel empowered to hear and rule on matters relating to the Congress elections, asked that the AZF method of voting be declared “null and void.”

The ZOA, Weisman continued, also sent an appeal to the World Zionist Organization Executive urging it to direct the AZF to “desist and refrain” from implementing the election process until a