Wjc Leader Calls for Calm in Debate over Assembly Meeting Site

A leader of the World Jewish Congress appealed today for “calm and reason” in the debate on where the postponed Plenary Assembly of the WJC should be held. Jacques Torczyner, chairman of the WJC-American Section, emphasized that no final decision has yet been taken in connection with the Assembly meeting site. The WJC Governing Council will determine the site when it meets in Switzerland at the end of April.

In a statement issued here, Torczyner expressed the hope that no one would make the question of the site of the postponed Assembly a test of personal loyalty to Israel. Those who argued for holding the Assembly in the United States, he noted, “were not one iota less committed to support for Israel–financial, economic and political–than those who insisted that it be held in Israel.” Torczyner added that there were times when an international meeting outside Israel could more effectively show solidarity with Israel’s position and serve this position better than meetings held within Israel.

When Dr. Nahum Goldmann first announced the postponement of the Assembly that was scheduled in The Hague there were unconfirmed reports that the meeting had been shifted to Miami. At that time, a number of WJC officials objected to holding the meeting in Miami and called, instead, for holding the Assembly in Israel. Leon Dulzin. acting chairman of the Jewish Agency, reportedly said that Israelis would most likely boycott the Assembly if it convened in the U.S. This weekend “The Dutch Jewish Weekly” cited the WJC’s decision to move its meeting from The Hague as “bowing to Arab terrorism.”

Torczyner, in his statement, declared that “there was sincerity on both sides of the debate, and it would be damaging to the interests of Israel and the Jewish people as a whole if the discussions were characterized by passion and hostility rather than by calm and reason.”