The development of two separate instruments to assist Israel–one, the Jewish Agency in which Zionists and non-Zionists should carry joint responsibility for financial and economic assistance to the Jewish State, and the other, a strong Zionist movement devoted exclusively to Zionist tasks–was proposed here today by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency, addressing the 55th annual convention of the Zionist Organization of America.
Dr. Goldmann also proposed a Congress of American Zionists representing “the strongest single force in American Jewish life.” This congress, he said, should be convened annually or-once in two years. “A half dozen conventions of Jewish groups could not match the effect and effectiveness of this one great platform, this solemn manifestation of combined Zionist strength,” he declared.
“It shall be one of the major tasks of American Zionist life in the immediate future to develop such structure, by forging the American Zionist Council to such instrument or in some other ways. Such organizational structure would inevitably eclipse the parties, push them into the background, and prevent issues arising from Israel’s internal affairs from becoming decisive issues-artificial as that may be in Zionist life in the Diaspora,” he stated. At the same time, he defined the relationship between Israel and the Zionist movement as follows:
1. “There must be a genuine and full partnership between the Zionist movement and the State of Israel in building the State and in mobilizing the Jewish people behind this effort.”
2. “No Zionist movement can work in opposition to the State and hope to survive. We will try to influence the leaders of the State, but on all matters concerning Israel, it is their decision that must be final.”
3. “On the other hand, it is necessary that the State cooperate with the Zionist movement, fully and in a spirit of unqualified good will. All it undertakes, in organized form, in Jewish life outside Israel, must be done in consultation, coordination with the Zionist movement. On internal Jewish matters, the State must entrust to the Zionist movement the task of ironing out and reconciling conflicts and coordinating assistance to Israel.”
However, Dr. Goldmann told the convention delegates that Zionism cannot orientitself exclusively towards Israel. “If Zionism wishes to become the guiding force in Jewish life, it cannot orient itself exclusively towards Israel,” he declared. “It must concern itself with all vital problems of Jewish life-community organization, the Hebreization of Jewry, etc.”
DR. NEUMANN ADVOCATES IMMIGRATION TO ISRAEL OF U.S. SPECIALISTS
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, member of the Jewish Agency executive, called upon the Zionist Organization of America to proclaim among its primary aims increased private capital investment in Israel and promotion of immigration to Israel of American Jewish professional and technical workers. “We should overcome,” he said, “any lurking inhibition or timidity about the idea of an American Aliyah but proclaim it forthrightly as one of our essential aims and follow through on it. The Zionist movement which fails to produce Aliyah or Chalutziut ceases to be Zionist.”
He reported that the interest of American Jews in investment in Israel is on the increase. He attributed the deficiency in Israel’s economic output partly to a “very acute shortage of skilled workers,” which he said is a consequence of the present character of immigration into the country. “The present wave of immigration is notably deficient in the normal proportion of trained professional and technical people which characterized earlier waves of immigration,” he asserted, “This has created a human deficit seriously affecting the rate of economic progress and production.”
Judge Louis E. Levinthal of Philadelphia, who presided, warned against “partisan acrimony and personal bitterness” in determining the future course of the world organization, whose function, he said, needs to be seriously explored and radically changed.
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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.
