The 29th World Zionist Congress will convene Feb. 20 and continue until Feb. 28. It is the first Congress in six years and the first gathering of world Jewry since the historic visit of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt to Jerusalem last November, the Yom Kippur War and the Likud victory last May. These events will be reflected in the deliberations. More than 2000 people, including 560 delegates with full voting rights, from 40 countries throughout the world will be at the Congress.
Avraham Schenker, head of the World Zionist Organization department of organization and information, told a press conference here yesterday that this Congress, contrary to previous Congresses, included not only representatives of Zionist parties but also representatives of other Jewish organizations.
He noted that for the first time, delegates of four world Jewish organizations, whose combined membership exceeds four million, will be participating. These movements, which recently joined the WZO, are the Reform and Conservative Movements, the Sephardic Federation and the World Maccabi. Schenker also said that the Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist movement, will meet this time with a more democratic basis than those which preceded it.
More than 1,200,000 Jews from all over the world, excluding Israel, took part in the membership count which took place in the months prior to the Congress. He rejected criticism that the Congress was no longer functional and emphasized that this was the only way to recruit world Jewry for a purpose other than fund-raising.
COMPOSITION OF DELEGATIONS
The change in the makeup of the Congress is reflected in the following figures: approximately 175 to 177 of the delegates will be from Likud, compared to 130 in the previous Congress; the World Confederation of United Zionists will have 105 to 110 delegates; the Zionist Labor Movement will have 95 to 96 delegates, compared to 161 previously; Mapam will have 26 to 27, compared to 33.
The Religious Zionist Movement will have 77, compared to 88; WIZO, 20, as in the previous Congress; the Democratic Movement for Change, 26; Independent Liberals, 4, compared to 13 previously; Sheli, 4; the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), 9; the French List of North Africans (Ziona), 3; miscellaneous, 3 to 4. Some 190 of the delegates are from Israel and 152 are from the United States. In addition, the Civil Rights Party will have 2 delegates.
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