An Israeli official has warned here that “Jewish history is full of missed opportunities because Jews woke up too late to the possibilities and even to lurking dangers.” Aviad Yaffe, chairman of the Israel Foreign Minister’s Consultative Committee on Information has been addressing various groups here in connection with the World Zionist Organization’s membership campaign. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the campaign was turning out more successfully than he had anticipated. He said that at meetings he addressed, some 50 percent of the unaffiliated persons joined the World Zionist Organization “on the spot” through the British bodies. Mr. Yaffe recalled that when the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1916. “Dr. Chaim Weizmann exclaimed in anguish, ‘where are the Jewish people?’ ” He also recalled that the Six-Day War demonstrated that volunteers and material support from diaspora Jewry arrived when the fighting was over. Fortunately, he said, Israel managed on her own and the material support was vital, whenever it came. “But we must not take such risks again. If the diaspora Jews are to be partners they must be there in good time,” he said.
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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.
