Special Interview Dulzin Unveils Plan for a ‘council of the Jewish People’

A “Council of the Jewish People,” embracing Israeli government leaders and Jewish leaders from the diaspora is planned by Premier Menachem Begin and the chairman-designate of the World Zionist Organization, Leon Dulzin. Dulzin unveiled the grand design in a special interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the eve of the 29th World Zionist Congress that opened here today.

The Council will evolve soon after the Congress, out of the present “Mossad Letium” (or coordination agency) which is a committee of top ministers and top Jewish Agency officials that convenes at infrequent intervals. Both Begin and Dulzin regard it as the possible nucleus of their plan to construct a “Council of the Jewish People,” and to this end they will invite to the next session of the “Mossad Letium” a fairly large number of top-flight Jewish leaders who are not formally connected with the WZO-Jewish Agency.

The meeting is scheduled for some time in the spring and the “Council,” if it develops as Dulzin hopes, would become a forum for high-level consultations between Israeli and diaspora leaders on Israeli and Jewish problems.

WOULD SERVE AS SOUNDING BOARD

Obviously, Dulzin says; Israel’s sovereign decision-making process on its own policy would not be affected. But the “Council” would serve as a much-needed sounding board and opportunity for exchanges of views.

As an example of an issue which could well be brought before the “Council” Dulzin cited the recent controversy in the U.S. Jewish community over whether or not Jewish leaders should meet with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and other high-ranking Egyptians, in Egypt or abroad. For himself, Dulzin says, “I see nothing bad in such meetings because I believe in the loyalty of our Jewish leadership.”

Looking ahead to his term as WZO chairman, Dulzin stressed the two themes that he intends to dwell upon in all his addresses to the Congress: Jewish education, and aliya. “The Jewish people,” he said, “faces a spiritual holocaust.” The growing generation have neither the trauma of Hitler’s physical holocaust nor the drama of the creation of Israel upon which to anchor their Jewishness. And, with only 20 percent of Jewish children in the diaspora receiving any sort of Jewish education at all, “a great number of Jews are in danger of simply disappearing as Jews.”

The World Zionist Organization, said Dulzin, is in effect the only comprehensive international Jewish body which bears collective national responsibility and thus it is the only body that can meaningfully address itself to this challenge. “If we don’t do it–no one will,” Dulzin asserted.

Hitherto the WZO has tended to focus its efforts on Israel. Now, radiating from Israel, the WZO “must turn its face to the diaspora which we have been neglecting.” Dulzin said.

A SINGLE EDUCATION CENTER PLANNED

In practical terms he proposes to set up, in tandem with the Israeli government and the Israeli universities, a single “education center” which will be equipped materially and professionally to put his ideas into operation. These call for: setting up day schools around the world; training teachers; preparing textbooks and other learning aids; initiating and assisting educational projects within the Jewish communities.

Dulzin declared that the long-hallowed division between the WZO education department and its Torah education department ought to be ended. “But the time is not yet ripe to take the formal step: in practice, though, I shall see the division as merely technical and will hope to end it at the next Congress,” he said.

NEED FOR SECULAR JEWISH EDUCATION QUESTIONED

According to Dulzin “there is no place for secular education. To the extent that this has existed in the past it has not succeeded. All Jewish education has to be based on the Jewish heritage. I think almost everyone agrees with this by now,” he claimed. “I would certainly hope that the person who is to head the WZO education department during my term will appreciate this…”

Summing up on education, Dulzin termed the WZO’s work in this field hitherto as “ordinary,” and pledged that the new momentum he proposes to inject will be “revolutionary.”

On aliya, his prognosis of the future without it is equally stark. “If Israel’s Jewish population remains in the order of three to 3.5 million, the State is in danger. Israel’s security cannot be ensured in the long term merely by peaceful borders.” Dulzin, once regarded as a candidate for Foreign Minister in the Begin government, believes the peace process has gone too for to be turned back.

He feels, however, that once peace does come, Israel’s drawing power will immeasurably increase. But peace alone is not the sole criterion of that drawing power. “Our ability to absorb newcomers, and the quality of our society, its Jewish content–these are the vital factors on which our future depends,” he said.

ISSUE OF EQUALITY

The 29th Congress, Dulzin said, will be incomparably more representative of the great masses of Jewry than any of its predecessors. The Reform and Conservative movements, with their millions of members, have become affiliated, as has the World Sephardi Union and World Maccabi. These groups will all have representation in the Congress and in all the elected bodies but their rights will still be less than equal, for their delegates may not vote on election of office-holders.

Dulzin said he opposed this “injustice,” but cannot overcome opposition to any further concessions from within the party organizations. In general, he said, he favors a diminution of the near-exclusive hold of the Zionist political parties over the WZO and pledged to work in this direction during his term as chairman. “I’m all for Zionist ideology,” he said. “But not for a narrow, party approach.”