Max Bressler, president of the Zionist Organization of America, proposed tonight that aliyah be understood to mean not a mass movement of Jews to Israel but a process of facilitating movement of American Jews to Israel for temporary service or permanent settlement.
That approach to aliyah was cited by Mr. Bressler as part of a program which had to be implemented to assure the future of the Zionist movement in the United States. Other elements he listed were tourism, intensive Jewish education, furtherance of Hebrew language and culture, and investments in Israel. He spoke at the first session of a four-day meeting of the National Executive Council of the ZOA.
He announced the ZOA would act to help meet the problems of housing for American newcomers, both temporary and permanent, through a program of building apartments in various cities financed by an Israeli building firm. He said the ZOA would not be involved as an organization in building or management. He announced establishment of a ZOA aliyah department, headed by Jacob Dinnes and Louis Sitkoff.
Dr. Max Nussbaum of Hollywood, executive council chairman, warned that any solution of the Arab refugee problem most not be achieved at the expense of Israel. Discussing a report that the Kennedy Administration favored a plan under which one-third of the Arab refugees would emigrate, a third integrated into the Arab countries and one-third to be repatriated to Israel or be compensated, he said: “We must caution our Government that this may mean the potential entry into the Jewish State of 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs who, for years, have been politically conditioned and literally trained for the destruction of the State of Israel.”
Dr. Emanuel Neumann, ZOA honorary president and member of the Jewish Agency executive, described the recent exchange of criticisms between the United Arab Republic and the Soviet Union as “little more than a ‘lovers’ quarrel’ which has already blown over. “He warned that the Kennedy Administration was likely to face another test of American foreign policy in the near future, this time in the Middle East.
He said “there has been no serious change of heart or policy on the part of the United Arab Republic, no softening of its attitude toward the West, and no weakening of its de facto alliance with the Soviet Union.” He expressed the hope that President Kennedy would not be persuaded to “lean backwards” to demonstrate “a spurious ‘impartiality’ as between Nasser, the intending aggressor, and Israel, his intended victim.”
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.
