“I do not see myself as a party candidate. I am not standing on behalf of any party. I am fighting against the ‘principle’ that any single party can claim a lien on the position of chairman of the Jewish Agency.” A determined-sounding Leon Dulzin, treasurer and acting chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives, made these statements to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an exclusive interview here this week as the political atmosphere seethed with rumors and reports concerning the chairmanship contest.
Dulzin had just returned from an emergency mission to Argentina, where he managed to avert a threatened strike by Jewish school teachers. He passed briefly through New York on his way back and is understood to have met with or spoken to several prominent Jewish leaders. He will reveal nothing of these conversations–beyond saying that he feels satisfied with them.
As Dulzin spoke to the JTA, news came that the Labor Party is moving into high gear in its efforts to retain the Agency chairmanship. Premier Yitzhak Rabin summoned a meeting of top ministers and key party workers yesterday to discuss the candidacy of Haifa Mayor Yosef Almogi, the man Labor hopes will wrest the chairmanship from Dulzin’s temporary grasp.
Sources inside Labor say the party is determined not to let the Agency chairmanship slip from its traditional control. It is precisely this attitude, says Dulzin, which he is determined to fight.
RECORD SHOULD BE BASIS OF CAMPAIGN
“I do not question the right of other candidates to run–but the contest should be one of personalities, fought on the basis of a candidate’s individual records, and of his fitness for the job.” His own campaign, Dulzin said, will be fought on this basis.
His record is seven years of service as the Agency treasurer, including almost one year as acting chairman–between the death of Louis Pincus in 1973 and the election of Pinhas Sapir in 1974. During that year, Dulzin said, he served with the confidence and cooperation of all sections of the Agency and in closest rapport with the government.
Dulzin, a leader of the Liberal Party wing of Likud, said his political views never impinged upon those relationships or upon his work as treasurer or acting chairman. He maintained that political views have nothing to do with the chairmanship issue because the Jewish Agency’s tasks are a-political–aliya, absorption, education, youth aliya, land settlement, etc. Dulzin noted that after Sapir’s death last month he was unanimously elected acting chairman again by the Executive.
Dulzin said that he and several leading figures in American Jewish affairs have been disturbed by reports that the Israel government intends to exert influence in the election contest in the Jewish Agency. There have been press reports here for instance, of Labor intending to “buy” Mizrachi support for Almogi by offering the National Religious Party a string of municipal posts. Such reports are detrimental to the Agency, says Dulzin significantly. It would be “to the benefit of all of us” if such actions ceased.
Dulzin said he believes that if Almogi finally decides to run, the contest will not be entirely along party lines. He expressed hope for support “from various groups within the Zionist movement including from some members of Labor itself.” He declined to elaborate.
WHEN WILL THE CONTEST TAKE PLACE?
It is not yet known when the contest will take place. There are three possibilities at the Zionist General Council meeting in January; the Jewish Agency Assembly in July; or the World Zionist Congress in December, 1976. Even if a new chairman is elected in January or July he will have to seek re-election in December at the Congress when the entire Executive is automatically up for election.
Dulzin, it is understood, plans to run for the Congress election, no matter whether he is elected chairman before that or whether he falls in a prior contest with Almogi. Dulzin’s supporters are urging that the contest be postponed until the Congress or at least until the Agency Assembly in the summer.
They point out that if Almogi is elected chairman of the WZO at the Zionist General Council in January, an anomalous situation would arise whereby Almogi would be WZO chairman and Dulzin Jewish Agency acting chairman — at least until July when the Agency assembly convenes and could elect Almogi chairman of the Agency, too, Dulzin, it is understood, would not voluntarily step down to allow Almogi to take over the Agency chairmanship.
At present the timing of the contest seems to depend on how successful Labor is in obtaining a broad consensus for Almogi. If such consensus can be obtained, Labor will push for an early contest.
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