Hadassah Leader Charges ZOA Election Campaign Literature Destructive

Mrs. Faye L. Schenk, president of Hadassah, accused today the Zionist Organization of America of distributing misleading campaign literature in the election race for American delegates to the 28th World Zionist Congress. She charged that “The ZOA’s tactics are destructive to the Zionist movement and have forced all of us to spend unnecessary money and effort in rebuttal.”

Mrs. Schenk noted that the ZOA appealed to the Zionist Congress Tribunal in Jerusalem and protested the election procedures adopted by the American Zionist Federation’s area elections committee. “After the Tribunal upheld the AZF voting procedures, the ZOA continued to bombard the press and deluge the homes of Zionists with mail carrying misleading statements about our position as non-party Zionists,” Mrs. Schenk claimed.

The Hadassah president noted that the Tribunal upheld the use of mail ballots as a proper means of election and also endorsed the AZF’s plan to select 55 percent of the delegates by ballot and 45 percent by party nomination. “The ZOA protested what it calls a ‘secret inter-party agreement’ on the distribution of the 45 percent,” Mrs. Schenk said. “The fact is the Congress Tribunal upheld this procedure ruling: ‘There is nothing to prevent the parties from making agreements among themselves without participation of all parties.” she added.

The ZOA had appealed to the Tribunal against an agreement between Hadassah, the Labor Zionists and Mizrachi for the distribution of Congress mandates which it considered exclusionary. In its ruling Nov. 22, the Tribunal declared that agreement void and ordered the parties not to abide by it.

Mrs. Schenk further noted that the Tribunal requested that “from now on the appellants refrain from making public accusations liable to harm the entire Zionist movement.” The ZOA, however, she stated, “has broken this injunction by the Tribunal.” The Hadassah leader said that B’nai Zion, the American Jewish League for Israel and Hadassah, organized for the election as the United Non-Party Zionists, is the “only Zionist grouping in the US not affiliated with any political party in Israel.”