Mrs. Rose Halprin, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency executive, called upon the Israel Government today to accept its share of responsibility in strengthening the world Zionist movement.
Addressing a press conference, Mrs.Halprin, who returned last week from talks in Jerusalem between the Jewish Agency and the Israel Government, said that a strong body of opinion in Israel did not share Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s opinion that the Zionist organization no longer had any function.
The general view of the participants in the talks, she declared, was that the world Zionist movement, if it is to be strong, must attract the Jewish masses and must make Jewish education a personal responsibility.
Stressing that Zionism has always been a minority movement, Mrs, Halprin said that the success of the Zionist program, depended on the step-by-step cooperation between the Zionist movement and the Israel Government. It was vital, she said, that Israel’s Government leaders encourage Jewry throughout the world to work along with the Zionist movement in helping Israel rather than attempting to deal with world Jewry directly.
Turning to the problem of Jewish education, Mrs Halprin defined the role of the Zionist movement as that of “a catalytic agent.” She said American Zionists had the opportunity of getting “400,000 families involved with Jewish education. ” If those American Jews who are affiliated with the Zionist movement could involve their families with Jewish education, she declared, this would be a significant start.
Another way Zionist-affiliated Jews could aid the cause of Jewish education, Mrs. Hal-prin said, was in the role of parents. By taking an active interest in the Jewish schools their children attended, such parents could bring about extensive improvement in America’s Jewish education program.
(In a letter to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Mrs. Halprin pointed out that the report published last week in the JTA Bulletin of her address before the convention of the World General Zionist Confederation in London did not accurately reflect the views expressed by her.”Some of the views attributed to me were those of others which I quoted in order to project a fuller picture of the various opinions prevailing in the debate on the future role of the World Zionist Organization and its relationship with Israel, ” Mrs, Halprin wrote.)
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.
