World Jewish Congress to Assemble in Switzerland in August

The World Jewish Congress will hold its third world-wide plenary session in Geneva in August, with representatives from Jewish communities in more than 60 countries participating, it was announced here today by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, acting president of the organization. The session will open on August 4 and will last a full week.

“Since our last Assembly in 1948, great changes have taken place both in the international world situation and in internal Jewish life,” Dr. Goldmann said in a statement. “The steady deterioration in international relations has had serious repercussion on the position of the Jewish people in many parts of the world. The Jewry of Eastern Europe has become completely cut off from the main stream of Jewish life and the events of the past few months in that region have created problems and dangers of the utmost seriousness for a number of Jewish communities.”

Other problems which will be discussed at the international gathering, Dr. Goldmann announced, include the consolidation and development of the State of Israel and the clarification of the relations between Israel and the Jewish people in other lands, the extension of unity of Jewish communities under the aegis of the World Jewish Congress as a body representative of autonomous communities and the development of organized Jewish life and communities now without central structures.

He stressed the achievements attainable through Jewish unity, citing the successful negotiation of an agreement with West Germany whereby that government undertook to pay $822,000,000 in settlement of Jewish material claims resulting from Nazi spoliation and persecution. He cited also the success of the World Jewish Congress since the last Assembly in organizing central representative structures in hitherto unorganized communities and securing cooperation with Jews in other lands through the World Jewish Congress.