Central Place Must Be Found for Israel in Life of Young Jews

Mordechai Bar-On, director of the World Zionist Organization’s youth department, said today that “a central place” must be found for Israel in the lives of young Jews all over the world and that their ultimate identification with Israel must be aliya. Speaking at a session of the World Jewish Congress Sixth Plenary Assembly devoted to the problems of Jewish youth, Bar-On said, “Although I am not very optimistic, I nevertheless believe that in the long run we will be able to save many of our youth, and as a result embark upon a new era in Jewish life.”

He said that “In recent years there has been a revival of interest in Israel among Jewish youth that manifested itself in the large numbers of young Jewish visitors” to Israel. Dr. Paul Warszawski, of Argentina, assistant director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, analyzed the factors which he said alienated Jewish youth from the Jewish community. He singled out the “extremely high degree of intolerance toward new, or merely different ideas by the Jewish communal establishment which has set very narrow limits for dissent.”

The debate on youth problems was held against the background of growing concern by the WJC of the future identification of young Jews with Jewish life. For the first time, youth delegates have been invited to attend a WJC Plenary Assembly. The young delegates make up about ten percent of the participating delegates.

SOVIET JEWS APPEAL TO WJC

At another session of the Plenary Assembly, two letters from Jews in the Soviet Union were read. One urged the WJC to continue its efforts on behalf of the struggle of Soviet Jews to emigrate. The other sought the organization’s help to improve the absorption process in Israel.

A letter signed by 150 Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, Vilna, Riga and Kiev said: “We would like to draw the attention of the Assembly to the fact that the willingness of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel depends directly on their successful absorption. We think therefore that this problem of absorption must become the concern of world Jewry as a whole and we would like to ask the WJC to take the necessary steps accordingly.”

The other letter, from five Leningrad Jews said they were aware of “the great and careful attention which the WJC pays to the problems of aliya, and especially aliya from countries where there are obstacles in the way of its Jews’ repatriation.” The writers expressed “Our hope that the WJC’s efforts on this matter will not weaken.”