The organization of a new Zionist party in America for the forthcoming elections to the nineteenth World Zionist Congress was announced here today by Rabbi S. Joshua Kohn of Utica, its founder.
The new group is to be known as the Community Party. Its list of candidates will appear as “List No. 4” on the ballot in the elections to the Zionist Congress.
“A new orientation in Zionism is absolutely necessary,” Rabbi Kohn said in explaining the party’s founding. “The forthcoming nineteenth World Zionist Congress is a challenge to every Jew, especially to the conservative movement. There is great dissension in the Zionist ranks. Zionist unity is endangered. The Revisionists have broken away from the World Zionist Organization. The Mizrachi seems to be luke-warm to Zionist unity. The Jewish Farmers’ Federation in Palestine is in opposition. The Agudah always has opposed Zionism.”
Explaining that “this sudden outburst of opposition to the World Zionist Executive is due to the fact that the Labor group won domination at the last Zionist Congress,” Rabbi Kohn says that although it cannot be denied that labor in Palestine is responsible for the finest ideals, labor in general has been unsympathetic toward Judaism “as we understand it in a traditional sense.” Rabbi Kohn believes, however, that if the Laborites in Palestine are given support in their social upbuilding, they will come in time to see that a Palestine without Judaism cannot prevail.
The program of the new Community Party is given by Rabbi Kohn as follows:
1. To support Labor Palestine in the social ideals.
2. To win labor to a sympathetic attitude towards Judaism.
3. To make Zionism a mass movement in every community and throw the weight of the conservative movement solidly behind the Zionist Executive and strengthen its power.
4. To strengthen the Jewish National Fund and to expose and vigorously oppose the land speculators and profiteers in Palestine.
Rabbi Kohn has been active in Zionist work since 1911. He was one of the founders of the Avukah Zionist Student Organization. He is now the spiritual leader of Temple Beth El here.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
