The first session of the newly-elected Israeli Constituent Assembly will open here tomorrow at 3:30 P.M., .local tine, when the 120 members elected to the Assembly and all invited guests enter the specially-prepared hall here where the session will take place. Provisional President Dr. Chaim Weizmann and members of the Cabinet will arrive in the hall at 3:45 and will take the salute from an honor guard composed of units of the Israeli Army and police force. Hatikvah will be played by a combined army-police band at this point.
At precisely 4 o’clock, Dr. Weizmann and the Cabinet will occupy their seats and the Assembly’s secretary, Moshe Rosette, will approach Dr. Weizmann’s table and strike it three times with a gavel, after which the Israeli President will rise to address the Assembly for 15 minutes.
Dr. Weizmann, after concluding his address, will call upon the Israeli Government’s secretary-general, Zeev Scharf, to read the oath of allegiance to the state of Israel. The oath will then be translated into Arabic and each member of the Assembly will be called to rise and recite the oath. At this point, the doyen of the largest party in Israel will be asked to propose the name of the speaker of the Assembly. It has not yet been decided whether voting for the speaker will be contacted by secret ballot.
After the speaker is chosen, he will address the Assembly briefly, after which the session will be adjourned until Tuesday. It is generally believed that the speaker of the Assembly will be Joseph Sprinzak, chairman of the Provisional State Council.
At present there are four candidates for the Israeli Presidency–Dr. Weizmann, Rabbi Meir Berlin, Prof. Joseph Klausnor and S. Eisenstadt. Weizmann’s only serious opponent is Rabbi Berlin, world Mizrachi leader, who is expected to be supported by the Religious Bloc, the Heruth and, to a certain extent, the General Zionists. Prof. Klausner was nominated by the Heruth and Eisenstadt by the Communists.
The method for choosing the Israeli President–whether by a two-thirds or simple majority–is expected to be decided tonight. Balloting for the Presidency will take place on Thursday. Rabbi Berlin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that he has not yet decided whether he will run for the Presidency, but promised to reveal his decision on Wednesday.
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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.
