Your vote helps determine how billions are spent on Zionist education
By Anat Rosenberg
Election season is in full swing both in Israel and the United States, where all eyes are looking ahead toward the outcomes of the races this September and in November 2020, respectively. While those two elections are incredibly important for Israelis and American Jews, another looming election that hasn’t garnered as much attention is equally—or arguably more—crucial for global Jewry.
U.S. elections to the World Zionist Congress, which take place every five years, offer American Jews a unique opportunity to have their voices heard on the most critical issues facing Israel and the Jewish people, including education, conversion, the status of Jerusalem, aliyah, fighting anti-Semitism, and Western Wall prayer arrangements, to name just a few. The next elections will be held during the seven-week period between January 21, 2020, and March 11, 2020, and voting is open to American Jews over age 18.
“This is the parliament of the Jewish people,” said Sondra Sokal, past AMIT president, current member of the Expanded Executive of the World Zionist Organization, and cabinet member of the American Zionist Movement. “This is the only place where the Jews of America get a chance, in a democratic election, to vote for who they would like to represent them on hard issues — issues such as who is a Jew, such as conversion law — that we grapple with every day.”
This vote will elect the 145 American representatives to the 38th World Zionist Congress—the largest delegation outside of Israel—and will determine which group has the greatest impact on setting policy for the coming years. It will also
ultimately determine how $3 billion gets spent annually on issues and activities that are most
important to Israel and Diaspora Jewry.
That money forms the budgets of the World Zionist Organization, The Jewish Agency, Keren Kayemet (The Jewish National Fund), and Keren Hayesod, and is spent in a variety of ways.
“In the U.S., for example, it’s spent on shlichim (emissaries from Israel) that work on all aspects of communal life,” said Sokal. “In the former Soviet Union, it’s spent on summer camps and teaching and encouraging aliyah. In Latin America, a lot of it is spent on security. A huge amount of money is spent on making sure that, when Jews are in danger anywhere and at any time, we can assist them in whatever way necessary.”
In other words, these elections help ensure Jewish continuity, the safety of the Jewish people, and that Israel-Diaspora ties remain strong.
“The notion that the collective is responsible for keeping Jews connected both to Judaism and to Israel is really important, and I believe it is vitally important for us to have more funds directed toward that activity,” said Sokal.
The Congress has an enormous impact on the future of the Jewish people, said Dr. Amnon Eldar, AMIT’s director general. “The Zionist leadership, which is elected by the Zionist Congress, reflects the balance of power within the Congress and has a significant impact on Zionist education policy in the State of Israel.”
“We would like to see more of the contributor dollars go to education in Israel,” Sokal said. “We would like to see more of the contributor dollars in the Diaspora go toward Zionist education; we would like to see more of an emphasis placed on aliyah — these are issues I believe in, and I think AMIT members and their families feel strongly about these issues as well.”
Once its 500 worldwide delegates are elected, the Congress gathers in Israel to establish the policies of the World Zionist Organization, following in the tradition of the first Zionist Congress convened by Theodor Herzl in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897.
“This election is a celebration of democracy in the Jewish community, where Jews in the United States have a unique opportunity to express their views on important issues in Israel and affecting the Diaspora. In a time of growing Anti-Zionism, often connected to anti-Semitism, casting a ballot in this election is also a personal reaffirmation of Zionism and a way to show broad support for Israel,” said Herbert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement (AZM), which administers the vote.
AMIT and its predecessor, Mizrachi Women of America, have been part of the Congress practically since the beginning. Mizrachi women joined the Second Zionist Congress, paving the way for AMIT members’ active participation in every
Zionist Congress since then. This year AMIT will run as part of the Orthodox Israel Coalition, a slate comprising AMIT and the Religious Zionists of America (RZA, the U.S. branch of the World Mizrachi Movement). The slate will represent the interests and values of Bnei Akiva, National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Union, Torah M’Tzion, Touro, Yavneh, and Yeshiva University — the broad consensus of the American modern Orthodox community — and ensure that the Congress takes their values into account.
“Over the years, the Zionist Congress has included many AMIT women and supporters of the AMIT network,” said AMIT director general Dr. Amnon Eldar. “Their influence on the development of schools in the AMIT network as well as on Israel’s education system has been extremely significant.”
AMIT founder Bessie Gottsfeld, z”l, addressed the Zionist Congress held after the Holocaust, urging the World Zionist Organization to commit to the Jewish education of the ingathered exiles. “I believe that the leaders of AMIT have a strong role to play at the Congress, not only in shaping Israel’s Diaspora commitments, but also in working to find common ground on many of the divisive issues currently affecting world Jewry,” said AMIT president Audrey Axelrod Trachtman. “As a reshet, we are committed to Klal Yisrael, the unity of the Jewish people; I would love to bring that same spirit to the Congress.”
“We were instrumental in some of the important decisions of the Congress,” said Sokal, “and we introduced legislation that said that the WZO and Jewish Agency will provide Jewish education to every oleh who comes to Israel. That was a significant accomplishment and not at all self-evident. Bessie Gottsfeld was a Zionist pioneer when she called on the Congress to champion that cause almost 70 years ago.”
More recently, AMIT’s representatives in the Congress helped ensure that American Jews going to Israel on a Zionist gap year at a yeshiva or midrasha program receive a stipend. This funding, through MASA, has had a huge impact on our own children and grandchildren and has been especially significant to Midreshet AMIT — the unique AMIT gap-year program for Diaspora girls that combines beit midrash learning and Zionist education with volunteerism at AMIT’s Frisch Beit Hayeled.
Jewish education around the world, and especially in the U.S., is still a critical issue, particularly in light of the disheartening Pew study of American Jews released in 2013. That “Portrait of Jewish Americans” showed a significant increase in the number of Jews who are not religious, who intermarry, and who are not raising their children as Jews.
“We’re losing Jews at an alarming rate and the decisions [of how the Congress allocates its funds] will put several billions of dollars up for issues such as Diaspora education,” said Sokal.
In the last Zionist elections in the U.S., in 2015, only 56,737 votes were cast, a low turnout that some Jewish leaders lamented. “We’re the second largest Jewish community in the world — we ought to be able to do better than that if we want to have a say in the way that Israel develops in the next decade,” said Sokal, urging all AMIT supporters and their family members over the age of 18 to vote.
Voting is open to American Jews ages 18 and over who accept the Jerusalem Program, which states that “Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, and views a Jewish, Zionist, democratic and secure State of Israel to be the expression of the common responsibility of the Jewish people for its continuity and future.”
For more information on the 2020 U.S. elections for the World Zionist Congress and to get election updates, visit www.voteoic.org – Vote For Slate #4
