— The Labor Party convention ended late last night after approving a 1071-member Central Committee–the largest by far in its history–and leaving the way open for further enlargement in order to accomodate all special interest groups and factions so as to present an image of unity in the elections, now expected to be held on June 30. Originally the Central Committee–the party’s policy-making body between conventions–was to have been limited to 750 members.
The Labor convention opened last December with a turbulant leadership contest in which incumbent party chairman Shimon Peres decisively defeated his rival, former Premier Yitzhak Rabin. It was resumed last week to elect a Central Committee and take care of other unfinished business but generated little excitment and fairly little public interest.
It addressed itself, at the closing session, to two deeply troubling issues–yerida, the emigration of Israelis who settle permanently abroad, and the cleavage between Israelis and diaspora Jewry over the meaning and future of Zionism
YERIDA THREATENS ISRAEL
The latter issue centered around a report submitted to the plenary session of the World Jewish Congress held in Jerusalem last month which upheld the right of diaspora Jews to criticize policies of the Israeli government, questioned the probability of large-scale aliya from Western nations and challenged a fundamental Zionist tenet that diaspora Jews live in “exile.”
Speakers at the closing session, who included MK Uzi Baram, Yehiel Leket who heads the Labor Zionist Organization, and veteran Laborite David Hacohen, focussed on yerida which, they warned, threatened the very existence of the State because it was draining away some of the finest young people, including many native born Israelis.
Baram said there were three “basic issues of national existence”: yerida, the attenuation of the Zionist movement and the shrinkage of Jewry. There are six million Jews in the U.S. but not six million who identify themselves as Jewish, he said.
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