Two world conferences of two world confederations of General Zionists, which are functioning as separate and competing groups, will take place in Israel during the week preceding the opening of the World Zionist Congress, it was announced here today. The conference of the World Confederation of General Zionists headed by Dr. Israel Goldstein and Mrs. Rose L. Halprin will be held in Jerusalem on December 25-26, while the conference of the World Confederation of General Zionists headed by Dr. Emanuel Neumann will take place in Tel Aviv on December 23-25.
Dr. Goldstein and Mrs. Halprin, in their announcement of the Jerusalem conference, pointed to the growth, since its reorganization in 1958, of the World Confederation they head, and to the gratifying increase in the non-party approach to Zionism manifesting itself more and more among leadership and Zionist masses. “Affiliation with parties in Israel,” they stated, “weakens the chances of achieving unity and harmony in Zionist ranks in the Diaspora.” They stressed the fact that delegates representing 33 countries outside of Israel will take part in their two-day conference.
“The 25th Zionist Congress,” they declared farther, “assumes particular significance and may well be one of the most decisive Congresses, in the history of the movement. This will be the first time that representatives of non-Zionist organizations will take their seats as accredited participants, to deliberate Jointly on problems which have heretofore been regarded as the exclusive province of Zionists.”
“The classical Zionism of Herzl and Weizmann is the best medium for the introduction of the as yet unaffiliated friend and sympathizer to Zionist problems and thinking,” they said in their announcement. “Unbound by party-line strictures, it fosters a direct, non-partisan approach to the problems which now engage the Jewish world and will be discussed from the floor of the Zionist Congress in Jerusalem.” Dr. Goldstein and Mrs. Halprin also announced that the World Confederation will tender a reception in Jerusalem in honor of Louis Lipsky, dean of American Zionism and co-founder of the American Jewish League for Israel, a Confederation affiliate in the United States.
Dr. Neumann, speaking on behalf of the World Confederation of General Zionists which he heads, said that, at the conference in Tel Aviv which his Confederation is convening, several key resolutions will be submitted as part of the General Zionist plat forms at the World Zionist Congress. These resolutions, he said, will call for:
1. Support for increased immigration from Western countries and a proposal to centralize all matters related to Western aliyah and its absorption in Israel in one Jewish Agency department; 2. Intensification of Jewish education and cultural work in Diaspora countries, particularly among the youth, and allocation by the Zionist Congress of an appropriate budget for this purpose; 3. Stepped up public information activities by the World Zionist Organization throughout the world; 4. Inclusion of all Zionist parties, without exception, in the Jewish Agency executive.
The Tel Aviv conference will also urge the reorganization of Jewish Agency departments and their distribution among the members of the World Zionist executive, taking into account the parliamentary strength of the various groupings in the Zionist Congress without favoring one party at the expense of others. “This particular resolution is aimed at preventing a situation in the future whereby a single party controls departments which spend 80 percent of the budget of the Jewish Agency,” Dr. Neumann emphasized in his announcement.
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.
