The Hadassah-Bnai Zion-American Jewish League slate swept the field in the elections for the upcoming 29th World Zionist Congress with 93,284 votes out of 198,112 total valid ballots cast. More than 200,000 ballots were cast by members of various Zionist parties throughout the country. There are some 900,000 registered Zionists nationally.
The Hadassah-led slate’s nearest competitor in the field of eight slates was the Zionist Organization of America which received 29,116 votes. The Labor Zionist Alliance-Pioneer Women-Friends of Labor Israel slate was severely trounced, garnering 17,534 votes. In the last elections, it received the second largest number of votes.
The number of valid votes cast for the other slates were: Religious Zionist Movement, 24,934; Herut-United Zionists Revisionists of America, 17,872; ARZA-Association of Reform Zionists of America, 11,373; Progressive Zionist List, 2964; and the New Coalition, 1035. Neither ARZA nor the New Coalition participated in the last elections. Both were formed last year.
Faye Schenk, president of the American Zionist Federation, in commenting on the election, termed it “one of the largest voter turnouts in any voluntary organization. According to the election experts, a turnout of over 25 percent is rarely achieved by any voluntary organization in the United States. We can justifiably be proud of the high level of participation of members of each and every Zionist organization.”
Moshe Kagan, chairman of the AZF’s election committee, said that “the number of people participating in this election demonstrates the vitality of the Zionist movement and its true commitment to democracy.” Despite duplicate ballots sent to many voters, fewer than 1000 persons returned duplicates, he reported.
Out of a total of some 500 delegates to the World Zionist Congress, 152 are allocated to the U.S. The distribution of the 152 American delegates according to the proportional system will officially take place tomorrow at a special meeting of the elections committee, according to Kagan. The elections were conducted by the American Arbitration Association for the AZF.
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