American Zionists were told today of a plan to revitalize the World Zionist movement through a vigorous campaign for Zionist education and aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel) from the affluent countries.
Yitzhak Korn, secretary-general of Ihud Olami, the Labor World Zionist Organization, now in the U.S. to enlist support for his program, told the American Zionist Council at a special meeting of its administrative committee, that the plan, which will be presented to the World Zionist Congress to open in Jerusalem on February 19, includes a personal pledge of aliyah and Jewish education by all who profess to be Zionists. Rabbi Israel Miller, chairman of the American Zionist, Council, presided at the meeting.
Organizationally, Mr. Korn said, the present World Zionist Organization-Jewish Agency unitary structure under his plan will be divided into two parts. The new WZO would be restricted to those Zionists who pledge themselves or their families to personal aliyah within a period of from three to five years. The second, and larger group, the new Jewish Agency for Israel, will be a functional organization handling the material aspects of Zionist work–fund-raising and administering the expenditures in Israel and throughout the world of the immigration and absorption program in behalf of newcomers to Israel.
“Aliyah,” Mr. Korn told the representatives of all nine Zionist organizations in the Council, “is, along with security, the prime priority in Israel. Without it, Israel cannot survive and prosper as a Jewish State, and give the new generation a challenge for Jewish survival. I therefore urge, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of political Zionism by Theodor Herzl and the beginning of the 20th anniversary year of the State of Israel, that Zionists devote themselves fully to meet Israel’s major need and priority: the preparation of an educated and trained aliyah from the affluent countries of the west.”
Mr. Korn said he feels that the Zionist movement achieved a major victory in establishing a Jewish State, but that, in the years since 1948, it has not had a real raison d’etre. “Unless Zionism commits itself fully to a program for aliyah and Zionist education,” he says, “it cannot long exist.”
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