President Carter, Dr. Henry Kissinger and Ambassador Andrew Young will be among the speakers when delegates from 33 countries on five continents as well as observers from four Eastern European countries and an Arab state gather here Oct. 30-Nov. 3 for the General Council conference of the World Jewish Congress (WJC).
This was announced here by Dr. Gerhart M. Riegner, Secretary-General of the WJC, who said that this would be the first meeting of the newly constituted Council and the first time a world meeting of the WJC itself was being held in the United States. The Council, he said, is the representative body of the WJC between meetings of the Plenary Assembly. It is headed by Leon Dulzin, treasurer of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization Executives.
The meeting will mark the last for Dr. Nahum Goldmann as president. He will step down after having served the WJC, of which he was a founder, as a topmost official since its beginning in 1936. Goldmann will give his presidential address on opening night on the subject, “The State of World Jewry.”
The Eastern European states whose Jewish communities will be represented at the meeting by observers are Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary and Poland, and the Arab state which will have an observer is Morocco. This will be the first time that representatives from any of these states have attended a world conference of the WJC, although some of them have been at regional meetings. The Jewish community of Rumania is a full affiliate of the WJC as is the Yugoslav community. Rumania will be represented by its Chief Rabbi, Dr. Moses Rosen.
The theme of the conference, Riegner said, is “World Jewry Faces the Future.” Among the scheduled speakers are: Yigal Allon, Knesset member and former Foreign Minister; Dr. Yosef Burg, Israel’s Interior Minister; Simone Veil, French Minister of Health; Baron Alain de Rothschild, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France; Yosef Almogi, Jewish Agency and World Zionist Organization Executives chairman; Avraham Harman, Hebrew University president; Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits, Chief Rabbi of England; and Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz.
The WJC has announced that President Carter will accept an award from Goldmann for his contributions to the cause of human rights. The Nahum Goldmann medal has been presented only three times in the past, the WJC said.
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