Report from the World Mizrachi Conference and World Zionist Congress

• By: daniel
• On: 28/06/2010 10:56:22
• In: Uncategorised
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Once evey 4 years, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) holds the World Zionist Congress (WZC), the first of which was famously held in Basle, Switzerland in 1897. This year, the 36th WZC was held on 14-17 June. The Mizrachi Organization had, once more, the largest delegation at the WZC of all the parties, and our delegates came from 30 countries.

In addition, the 29th World Mizrachi Conference took place, and the members of the movement discussed the status of the Organization and set the agenda and priorities for the movement for the next 4 years until the next World Conference.

At the WZC, the discussions in the committees often became heated when centred around debates on the issues of pluralism, conversion, settlement in Israel, and a two-state solution. The heated debates continued into the main plenary where the nature of the discussion often became very heated. Unfortunately, a few resolutions were passed which we vehemently disagreed with due to the seemingly unbreakable coalitions of the Left incorporating the Left-leaning parties in the Knesset – Meretz, Kadima – and the non-Orthodox denominations – Conservatives, Reform – leaving the Right-leaning parties outnumbered.

While the Mizrachi has always enjoyed some support from our fellow Religious/Right parties such as Likud, Emunah, Yisrael Beiteinu, this Congress was the first to feature Shas as a party after they declared their wish to join the Zionist entity. While the Shas delegation seemed to vote the same way as the Mizrachi delegation on the whole, there was much debate amongst the Mizrachi delegates as to how Shas's entrance to the WZC should be viewed. No consensus was reached but it was clearly seen in the voting that Shas are destined to be more closely linked to us than the other parties although they formed a joint Siah with Likud.

Tensions were at a peak wconcerning the above controversial resolutions but calm was eventually restored and on reflection many of the participants, especially the young delegates, felt that the WZC was a wasted opportunity. You can read the thoughts of two of the delegates at http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=178996 .

One of the most exciting and momentous occasions for Mizrachi, was the election of Avraham Duvdevani (Duvdev) as the Chairman of the WZO. Duvdev is one of the leaders in the Mizrachi movement and has been active in the National Institutions for many years, most recently serving as Co-Chairman of Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (KKL). His appointment marks the first time that the Chairman of the WZO is from the Religious-Zionist camp. In his inaugural speech, Duvdev quoted psukim from Tanach and expressed his feeling about taking on such an important job by citing the prayer Hineni that the chazzan says before leading Mussaf on the Yamim Noraim. On being the first from Mizrachi to lead the WZO, he said “Israelis are now used to seeing religious-Zionists in meaningful positions of influence, whether in government, the army, education. It’s not strange to them anymore.”

The Mizrachi Conference was opened by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yafo and former Chief Rabbi of Israel and was attended by delegates from 30 countries as well as Minister Rabbi Prof Daniel Hershkowitz, MK Zevulun Orlev, MK Uri Orbach, Arieh Handler (senior leader in England for many years who recently celebrated his 95th birthday), Duvdev, and others. At the Conference, discussion in the following 5 committees led to resolutions being put forward to the Conference. The committees were: Constitution of the World Movement, The Young Generation, The Vision and Implementation (Education, Aliyah, Tourism), The World Movement from Conference to Conference (branches, activities, Sister Organizations, our relationship with the WZO and JAFI), Budget, Finance, Fundraising and Assets, Steering Committee and the Presidium. The Young Generation Committee, for example, drafted a resolution to expand the scope of Yavneh Olami to deal with young adults linking them to the Mizrachi family, which was unanimously passed. A controversial motion was passed keeping the Conference 'open' until next year to allow for the implementation of structural changes and a number of important constitutional changes.

Rounding off the Conference was the appointment of the senior positions in the Organization. Current Chairman Kurt Rothschild was elected as the movement's President with Harvey Blitz replacing him as Chairman in a year's time. In addition, Minister Hershkowitz was appointed to the Board of World Mizrachi. Below are the positions:

President (Chairman until June 2011) – Kurt Rothschild
Co-President – MK Zevulun Orlev
Chairman from 2011 – Harvey Blitz
Vice-Chairman – Jack Kahn, Danny Lamm, Sondra Sokal
Board Members – Minister Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, Eliezer Sheffer
Director-General – Solly Sacks
Treasurer – Jeremy Kurnedz

In addition, the following tafkidim are to be filled in the National Institutions:

Chairman, World Zionist Organization – Avraham Duvdevani (Duvdev)
Deputy-Chairman, KKL – Gael Grunewald
Chairman, Spiritual Services in Diaspora Department, WZO – Rabbi Yechiel Wasserman

Following the Conference was an optional Shabbat program which was filled with beautiful davenning, inspiring shiurim and divrei Torah, as well as a fascinating panel debate which could have lasted for many hours!

All in all, it was a fantastic week, and it is hoped that the Mizrachi continues to go from strength to strength.