General Zionist Union Urges New Policy to Attract Western Immigrants to Israel

The World Union of General Zionists closed its conference here with the adoption of a program for aliyah (immigration), absorption and the re-organization of the Zionist movement. The conference urged the Israel Government to “introduce without delay” a new policy on absorption that would attract immigrants, particularly from the West. It declared, however, that immigration and absorption could not be separated and that both functions must be left exclusively in the hands of the Jewish Agency Executive.

The General Zionists also supported the idea of creating “circles of olim,” Zionists pledged to immigrate to Israel, but stipulated that such groups must be completely outside the framework of political parties and should embrace a wide variety of diaspora Jewry. The conference urged that the Zionist program be amended to place greater emphasis on the fields of Hebrew education, aliyah and information. It opposed the concentration of two departments in the hands of one person and proposed the abolition of the American section of the Jewish Agency Executive.