Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives, and former Israel President Ephraim Katzir will head a new WZO group to promote Zionism throughout the diaspora.
Dulzin said that he believed an effort must be made to reach Jewish intellectuals abroad because of the attack on Zionism throughout the world. He said it is intended to get some of the best minds among Jews abroad to give attention to the problems facing Zionism and the Jewish people.
The project is modeled on the annual seminar held in the home of the President of Israel and the monthly study groups on diaspora Jewry which have evolved from this seminar. There are seminars now functioning in New York under Prof. Mervin Verbit, in Boston under Prof. David Landes, in Toronto under Prof. Emil Fackenheim, and in Britain under Prof. Martin Gilbert. Plans call for additional seminars in California, South Africa, France and Argentina.
Prof. Moshe Davis, of Hebrew University’s Institute of Contemporary Jewry, will head the program’s executive board and will be responsible for preparing the subjects for discussion. Plans call for a study circle set up in each city which will include 40 persons meeting monthly. Dulzin said the seminars will seek to enrich Zionist thinking and planning as well as to suggest long-term ideological directions.
Both Dulzin and Katzir said it is hoped that this program will bring Jewish intellectuals many of whom are presently removed from Judaism and Zionism back into Jewish life.
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