This city will be host to two world Zionist conferences this week. The 28th World Zionist Congress, which opens Tuesday, will be attended by 551 delegates from 26 countries and representatives of communal organizations will attend as observers. It is expected that the total number of participants will be 800.
Today and tomorrow the World Confederation of Zionists, the only Zionist Congress faction based only outside Israel, will hold a pre-Congress world conference at which 150 delegates from 26 countries will participate. The World Zionist Congress is convened every four years by the World Zionist Organization, the largest single organization in the Jewish world, to chart the path of the organization in the years ahead and to elect the officers and institutional bodies.
Israel’s President Zalman Shazar will address the opening ceremony of the World Zionist Congress. One of the main themes of the Congress will be “The Jewish People–Challenges and Tasks.” The keynote address at the opening session by Louis Pincus, chairman of the Zionist Executive, will be devoted to this topic. The debate on this subject will continue for two days.
U.S. HAS LARGEST FOREIGN DELEGATION
Participating in the debates will be such prominent delegates from abroad as Dr. Abraham Heschel and the French-Jewish writer Albert Memmi. A special round-table session will be devoted to the struggle of Soviet Jewry with a panel composed entirely of recent Soviet immigrants. Other sessions will deal with education and culture, the young generation in the Zionist movement and aliya and absorption.
The largest delegation to the Congress from abroad is from the US with 152 delegates. The Israeli delegation will have 200 members based on proportionate distribution among the Zionist parties in the Knesset. In addition to the 551 delegates and communal representatives will be 20 representatives of WIZO, 15 representatives of the World Sephardi Federation and 20 representatives of Soviet immigrants in Israel.
The World Confederation of General Zionists will have 100 delegates at the Congress making it the largest faction from abroad and the second largest at the Congress. Only Labor with 160 delegates –70 of whom are from abroad–is larger. The World Confederation’s conference will discuss issues facing the Zionist movement and the future of Zionism after the elections.
Speakers at the conference will include Ezra Shapiro, chairman of Keren Hayesod, Kalman Sultanik, executive vice-chairman of the World Confederation, and Mrs. Charlotte Jacobson, member of the American section of the WZO Executive. Dr. Israel Goldstein and Mrs. Rose L. Halprin are chairmen of the Confederation.
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