The dangers threatening Jewish survival in countries outside Israel pose the most serious current problem for the Jewish people. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, told the American Zionist Council here last night at the opening session of a two-day meeting.
Jewry’s “imperative need” at this time. Dr. Goldmann declared, is to make the culture “and creativeness of Israel the main source of Jewish survival.” Unless the problem of survival is solved, he warned, and full cooperation is established between Jews in Israel and those in other countries, there will be no certainty either of the future of Israel or of the survival of Jewish communities in other countries. In a review of the world Jewish scene, Dr. Goldmann told the Council that “there was perhaps never before in modern Jewish history a time when the Zionist movement was faced by as many tasks as today.”
Rabbi Irving Miller, re-elected today chairman of the Council, warned against the “strong riptide that is now sweeping towards nihilist or secular assimilationism.” To fight this trend, he called on the Zionist movement to perpetuate with in the American Jewish community a living Hebrew culture based on cultural identity between Israel and American Jewry.
Louis Segal, Labor Zionist leader and chairman of the Council’s immigration committee, reported that 10,000 Americans had gone to Israel to live in the last ten years. He condeded that some Americans had since returned from Israel, but said the reasons for their actions was not clear at this time.
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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.
