The Zionist Organization of America flatly refused Sunday to join “any American Zionist federation as presently proposed.” The 100,000-member ZOA said further that establishment of a federation, as proposed, “should be postponed pending further consideration of this matter by the Jewish Agency Executive and the World Zionist Organization.”
The vote against membership was approved by the National Executive Committee which ruled that “implementation of the proposals would impose on the American Zionist movement an expensive and bureaucratic superstructure which would substitute organizational controversy, red-tape and duplication for effective Zionist work in the United States.” This it said, would result in “a substantial weakening of the entire Zionist movement.” The ZOA National Executive Committee also declared that the implementation of the proposals, prepared by the Advisory Committee on the American Zionist Federation, “will inevitably impair, curtail and lead to the liquidation of the traditional functions and activities of the ZOA.” It rejected the proposed Federation as “injurious to the Zionist movement and the best interests of Israel.”
The ZOA is not a member of the Advisory Committee which has proposed reconstitution of the Zionist movement in the U.S. The World Zionist Congress voted in July, 1968 to establish territorial Zionist federations to replace the present Zionist party system. The proposed federations throughout the world would be constituted 50 percent of Zionists and 50 percent of non-Zionists.
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.
