Non-zionist Groups to Participate in Forthcoming Zionist Congress

Representatives from non-Zionist organizations will participate in all deliberations of the 26th World Zionist Congress, opening here Dec. 30, Dr. Nahum Goldmann reported here today. He said that the B’nai B’rith is the first of such organizations from the United States scheduled to participate. These participating organisations will not have voting rights.

Dr. Goldmann stressed the importance of the non-Zionist participation because the Zionist Congress will be devoted mainly to the problems of Jewries outside Israel. He also said he envisaged increased Israel Government participation in Zionist educational work in Jewish communities outside of Israel. He added that Israeli political parties were showing readiness for greater flexibility for changing the Zionist movement’s structure in countries outside of Israel, to make possible membership in the movement in those countries without requiring party membership.

The Jewish Agency executive, now in plenary session here, has approved unanimously a proposal for submission to the Congress, permitting co-opting to the Agency executive, for periods between Congresses, of persons who are not members of Zionist parties, and to co-opt such persons also to the Zionist Actions Committee. Dr. Goldmann said he was prepared to continue serving as World Zionist Organization president. He added that he had been encouraged by the Israel Government’s close cooperation with the Zionist movement.

Remarking that it was too early to tell whether there will be a change in the Soviet treatment of Russian Jewry under the new Kremlin leadership, Dr. Goldmann pointed out that it was significant that the Communist parties in the West had started to question the Soviet anti-religious line generally and its anti-Jewish line in particular.

He also said that a third “Jewish document” was being drafted for presentation to the Ecumenical Council in Rome, which would be “certainly better” than the second document which touched off a furore in Jewish and Catholic circles.