The European conference of the World Confederation of General Zionists, which met here under the chairmanship of Dr. Emanuel Neumann, of New York, drafted a statement defining its concept of the role of the Zionist movement and the relationship of the Jews of the world with the Jews of Israel.
The statement declared that the twofold mission of the State of Israel is to continue the maximum concentration of Jews within its territories and to serve as the national-spiritual center of world Jewry. This conception, it noted, called for “an organic relationship” between Israel and the Diaspora (the Jews outside Israel) as integral parts of one Jewish people.
“The Jews of Israel,” it said, “have both the right and the duty to influence the Diaspora in shaping the development of Jewish life. It is equally the right and duty of Diaspora Jews to influence the Jewish community of Israel so that the State may fulfill the highest aspirations of the whole Jewish people.”
The statement declared that “this is not intervention but fruitful cooperation and interaction in the interest of a common destiny.”
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