Reorganization of U.S. Zionist Movement Debated at Two-day Parley

Plans for changing the structure of the Zionist movement in the United States were discussed here at a two-day conference of the American Zionist Council, coordinating body of the nine Zionist organizations in this country. A declaration on the primary aims of the movement was adopted at the concluding session today.

The plan debated is based on a resolution adopted by the World Zionist Congress held in Jerusalem in January, 1965, and the recommendations of an American committee on reorganization of the Zionist Organization which has been exploring such plans for the past 18 months. The recommendations will be brought to the next meeting of the World Zionist Actions Committee, governing body of the world Zionist movement between Congresses.

Aryeh Pincus, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, with headquarters in Jerusalem, set the keynote of the debate when he called for “unified action and the establishment of a suitable instrumentality for the unification of the Zionist movement in the United States.” He stressed that the issues which divide the separate Zionist organizations in the Western world “are of far less importance than those beliefs and commitments they hold in common.” “Only through unified action,” he said, “can the Zionist movement become the effective force in the fate and future of Western Jewry.”

The recommendation submitted by the American committee on the reorganization of the Zionist Organization proposed that “all members of existing Zionist organizations shall be enrolled automatically as members of the American Zionist Movement, and any other individuals shall be entitled to enroll directly as members. The details of such a reorganization plan should be worked out in further sessions of our committee and in continuing consultation with the Zionist organizations and other appropriate bodies with a view to a democratic participation of the entire membership of the American Zionist Movement.”

Under the above recommendation, it is construed that those individual Zionists who do not wish to enroll in existing Zionist organizations, for ideological or any other reasons, may enroll directly as members of the proposed unified Zionist structure.

Z.O.A. OPPOSES REORGANIZATION PLAN; HADASSAH SUPPORTS IT

Jacques Torczyner, president of the Zionist Organization of America, voiced misgiving about the plan for reorganization as it was submitted in the present form. He said that the “ZOA will only join any reorganization plan if the integrity and independence of the ZOA is absolutely safeguarded.” He further maintained that “the problems facing the Zionist movement today are not of an organizational nature. The movement has to know what its real aims are, and work out a program of activities on the American scene.”

Mr. Torczyner further said: “Instead of finding the least common denominator for Zionist activities on the American scene, and trying to enroll people who are only interested philanthropically in the future of Israel and the Jewish people, the Zionist movement should be a militant group for a positive Jewish and Zionist program. It should not be afraid of being controversial and running against the tide of a false euphoria about the present status of the Jews in the United States.”

Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, national president of Hadassah, favored the reorganization plan. She termed the proposals presented by the committee on reorganization as “timely and practical. They are certainly worth trying.” She maintained that “the recommendations offer a degree of flexibility and modernity that will make it possible for the movement to accommodate within its ranks many views and many personalities who have been discouraged from joining our ranks because of a rigid structure that is not workable in today’s world.”

Hy Faine, president of the Labor Zionist Organization of America said: “It is apparent that the present structure — the American Zionist Council — lacks the organizational framework for the individual membership base to adequately accomplish either of these tasks. A new form and a new base are the essential prerequisite for development and growth.” Rabbi Herschel Schacter, president of the Religious Zionists of American, declared that “the Zionist leaders must be prepared to grapple with basic issues of program and reorganization.”

The two-day session concluded with a declaration adopted by the 250 Zionist leaders from all parts of the country who attended the conference, recommending that “each of the national bodies in American Zionism promote similar discussions among their own constituencies, so that out of such discussions may emerge decisions which will redound to the benefit of American Zionism and its capacity to discharge its responsibilities to the benefit of Israel and of the American Jewish community.”

Rabbi Israel Miller, president of the American Zionist Council, addressing the conference, scored the inadequate allocations being made by Jewish Federations to the furtherance of Jewish education.