Mrs. Faye Schenk, president of the American Zionist Federation, told nearly 500 delegates attending the fourth AZF biennial convention here today, that “from our Zionist perspective, it would be correct to state that the two-year period since the last AZF convention has witnessed an intensification of the American Jew’s identification with Israel’s cause and plight and a new receptivity to Zionism.”
Due to the infamous Zionism equals racism resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly of Nov. 10, 1975, “which had as its end goal the destruction of the Jewish State and the Jewish people, the Zionist cause has gained greater interest and support,” she added.
Schenk said that “many who never understood what Zionism was all about had identified with the Zionist idea because they realized that Judaism and Zionism were one, and that they wanted to identify personally with the age-old aspirations of the Jewish people to live in their own homeland.”
She pointed out that the “AZF had united the various Zionist groups into a strong, effective, penetrating Zionist whole, to give verve, vitality and visibility to Zionism as a great liberation movement, steeped in our Biblical and historical past and that it had brought the word and the fact of Zionism the national and international reputation it deserves.”
“Therefore,” she said, “I call on the World Zionist Executive to back its words with deeds, giving us the sinew and muscle we need and deserve to make our work even more effective.”
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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.