Ben Gurion Calls for Unification of All Zionist Groups in U.S.

Israel Premier David Ben Gurion today appealed to the Hadassah convention, which is taking place here, to raise the position of the Zionist movement in the United States as an “educational and guiding factor in Jewry.” In a cable to the convention, the Israel Premier defined the mission of Zionism in the following program:

1. Enrich the lives of Jewry culturally and spiritually with the heritage of our people and the teachings of the Prophets and inculcate the whole people with Zionist truth.

2. Give youth a Hebrew education that will connect it to the great past of our people and its eternal Biblical inheritance so as to be a living link with the revival of Israel’s independence on its own soil.

3. Promote a Halutz movement among youth and make the most courageous and adventurous, in the highest sense of the word, share personally in the historic rebirth of a nation and a homeland in many ways similar to that wrought by American pioneers some generations ago. Mr. Ben Gurion said that the implementation of this program called for a unification of all Zionist sections in the United States, without affecting the special projects or the autonomous set-up of each separate Zionist body. He paid tribute to Hadassah’s medical activities in Israel, crowned this year with the ground breaking for the medical center in Jerusalem.

“The difficult period in which we live,” the Premier said, “calls on Hadassh, without diminishing its present efforts, to pioneer in new fields of activity. Fortunately for us, Hadassah is rich in leadership, well qualified to educate and guide and Hadassah must play a leading role in initiating the integration and strengthening of the Zionist movement in America.”

MRS. ROSENSOHN RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT; $9,000,000 BUDGET ADOPTED

Mrs. Samuel J. Rosensohn of New York was re-elected national president of Hadassah at the concluding session of the convention, which adopted a record $9,000,000 budget for 1952-53. It was also announced that the organization had sold to date $10,000,000 worth of Israel bonds, and that bond selling activities would be speeded up to reach the organization’s goal of $30,000,000 by 1954.

Declaring that the failure of the United States to ratify the genocide convention of the United Nations was “inconsistent with its position of moral leadership among the free nations of the world,” the convention urged “the bringing to the floor of the Senate of the genocide convention for its prompt ratification.”

Another resolution urged Congress to appropriate sufficient funds for the Point Four program and “to technical assistance programs through the United Nations so that economic aid will be given to building up those areas of the world whose population suffers from disease and hunger, thus removing the causes of discontent and the tendency of these people to look for panaceas to bring about a better way of life that often lead to enslavement.”

The principal items in the budget are: $3,000,000 for the Hadassah medical organization in Israel; $2,300,000 for Youth Aliyah; and $1,175,000 for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem and Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School.