A proposal for a “radical revision” in the Jewish Agency was approved here today by delegates attending the extraordinary Mid-Year Conference of the Mizrachi Organization of America. The conference noted that “structural adjustments in the Zionist Organization are necessary in the face of the new realities resulting from Jewish Statehood, and declared that “the Jewish Agency for Palestine, a relic of the Mandatory period, must either disappear or take on new form new substance and even a new name.” The conference suggested that the entire structure of Zionism might require revision.
Internal problems of the movement were considered in a resolution which urged a greater unity among parties of the religious Zionist movement and deplored the “tendencies of disunity” which had developed in recent months. “We feel that there was no reason for any group to break away to any extent and thus weaken the position and dissipate the effort of organized religious Zionism, ” the conference stated.
The changed conditions in the ranks of religious Zionism required a change in the structure of the World Mizrachi Central in Israel, the conference declared, “to make it capable of meeting the new tasks with which it shall be entrusted.” Urging that the World Mizrachi Central be made “exclusively an executive agency,” the conference said its role should be one of carrying out the decisions and plans adopted at a general conference of the different national Mizrachi organizations. The resolutions were introduced by Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein.
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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.