Calling for a maximalist program in the Zionist movement with an eye to large-scale post-war Jewish emigration, Judge Louis E. Levinthal, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told a press conference here today that “Zionists will have to adopt a new language, new slogans and a new approach.”
“We must think in terms of the emigration after the war of at least three million Jews,” Judge Levinthal said. “Great funds will be needed for this and the governments of the world will be required to aid in this mass-emigration.”
Judge Levinthal said he was “highly gratified” at the overtures towards rapprochement with the Zionists made by the Russian Government and the Jews of Russia. He revealed that recently the Zionist Organization of American had sent a message of felicitations and sympathy to the Jews of Russia through the Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinoff and that the latter was very much pleased to transmit the message.
Referring to the newly-formed Ichud Party in Palestine, which has provoked much discussion among Zionists in the United States, Judge Levinthal disclosed that the executive committee of the ZOA has received a cable from Henrietta Szold in Jerusalem, asking American Zionists to defer judgement on the new party until they receive her detailed report on the group. Acting on this cable, the executive committee decided to postpone issuing any statement on its attitude towards the Ichud Party until the actual objectives of the party can be clarified.
Simon Schetzer, Secretary of the Zionist Organization, declared that the coming ZOA convention would register a record-breaking membership for the organization, with close to 50,000 members on the roster. The convention will also learn that the deficit “which hung like a millstone” around the neck of the Zionist organization, has been reduced by more than 50 percent and it is expected that this deficit will be entirely liquidated before another year has passed, despite the strain of the war.
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.
