Jewish Agency Executive Session Closes; World Zionist Congress to Be Held in July

The date for the 1951 World Zionist Congress has been set for the first half of July, it was announced today at the New York headquarters of the Jewish Agency. It will be the first gathering of the supreme representative body of the world Zionist movement since 1946 and the first since the establishment of Israel.

Announcement of the date was made by Berl Locker, chairman of the Jerusalem section of the Jewish Agency, and Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the American section, in a report to the press on the decisions made during the two-week plenary of the Jewish Agency executive, which closed yesterday. The two chairmen explained that the exact date for the opening of the Congress will be determined by the availability of the Congress Hall now under construction in Jerusalem. Other major decisions reached by the plenary in the last two weeks were listed by Mr. Locker and Dr. Goldmann as follows:

1. Financial stringencies have forced a shake-up of budgetary items designed to free as much money as possible for direct use in immigration, absorption and colonization programs. Jewish Agency offices in Europe and North Africa were consolidated and other economics instituted. The new budget reveals that several millions of dollars heretofore required by the Absorption Department for running the immigrant camps will be saved next year for more productive purposes under the new “Operation Homestead” through which the bulk of the newcomers never get to see the inside of a camp.

2. The executive, after a discussion with a representative body of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, went on record as opposed to the Council plan for a Central Israel Fund and to any attempt by the Council to replace the United Jewish Appeal. The executive decision was based on its conviction that the Council conception of a central fund would result in a loss of revenue to Israel.

3. The executive voted to give the Youth Aliyah permission to seek agreement with the central fund-raising agencies–in all countries of the world where such exist–for independent Youth Aliyah campaigns. The executive stressed that the independent campaign would be authorized only where the central agencies agree that the major campaigns would not be injured thereby.

4. The executive voted to continue allocations to the Mizrachi Palestine Fund and to the Constructive Fund of the World Confederation of General Zionists for constructive work in Israel. Each party was given a percentage designed to give it the same proportion of Jewish Agency income as it received last year.

“The executive plenary which just closed,” the statement issued by Mr. Locker and Dr. Goldmann declared, “was the first to have been held in the United States for two years. It was a successful plenary in achieving a maximum of results under adverse financial circumstances arising from Israel’s increasing needs and a decrease of the flow of money from the United States.

“It is clear that grave responsibilities now confront the American Jewish community upon whom, in the end, responsibility for the success of the four-point program devolves. The Israel members of the executive join with the American members in urging the American community to back the United Jewish Appeal to the limit this year and to be ready to support the Israel Government’s bond drive when it opens in the spring,” the statement concluded.