More than 500 delegates from 65 countries around the world will gather in Jerusalem next month for the Sixth Plenary Assembly of the World Jewish Congress–the first to be held in Israel. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, WJC president, will open the Assembly on Feb. 3 in Jerusalem’s Binyanei ha’Ooma. “World Jewry in a Changing World” will be the theme of the week-long meeting, according to Jacques Torozyner, chairman of the American Section of the WJC. The American delegation of 109 will be the largest among the national Jewish communities.
From Eastern Europe, the Jewish communities of Rumania and Yugoslavia will be in attendance; from Asia India and Iran from Africa Kenya, Republic of South Africa, Rhodesia, Zaire and Zambia. The last Plenary Assembly was held in Brussels in 1969, Twice during the past three years the meeting has been postponed because of unavoidable circumstances.
Noting that Israel has been involved in two major wars since the last WJC Plenary Assembly, Torczyner declared “The World Jewish Congress will give voice to world Jewry’s solidarity with the people of Israel. We will also express our pledge of support to the State of Israel for a free Israel within secure and defensible borders. The future of Israel is the concern not only of its citizens but of the entire Jewish people, The Plenary Assembly will discuss Israel-diaspora relations, not merely in terms of exchange of views but rather within the framework of a forum where we can talk with and to each other and both give and take criticism without offense or rancor.”
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