Treasure Trove: Zionism Means Israel’s Election Involves Diaspora Jewry Too

If the original purpose of Zionism was to establish a home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, what is the purpose of Zionism once that home (the State of Israel) is established?  That is the question that was before the delegates to the 23rd Zionist Congress in Jerusalem which opened 75 years ago, on August 14,1951.  It was the first Congress held in Israel and the first Congress after the State was declared.

The Congress was held at the International Convention Center (or Binyanei Ha’Uma, the Nations Buildings) which, you can tell from this postcard, was not quite completed at the time of the Congress.  The ICC was established in 1950 as part of a plan to create a government campus in the nearby Givat Ram neighbourhood of Jerusalem.  The ICC was founded by the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund and the Jerusalem Economic Development Corporation who collectively wished to build a conference centre to symbolize the sovereignty of the new State.

It was that very sovereignty that the delegates wrestled with for the 16 days of the Congress, as they tried to determine how Zionism and the World Zionist Organization fit in to this new and marvellous reality.

After much wrangling, by a vote of 286 to 0 (with 152 abstentions) the Congress adopted a resolution which defined the tasks of the Zionist movement as:

1.The strengthening of the State of Israel

2.The in-gathering of the exiles in the the Land of Israel.

3.The fostering of the unity of the Jewish people.

This became known as the Jerusalem Program (which replaced the Basel Program of 1897) and, with a number of modifications that have been made since, is the official platform of the World Zionist Organization and the Zionist movement.  Everyone who voted in the 2025 elections for the World Zionist Congress confirmed that they accepted the Jerusalem Program.

Why did 152 delegates abstain?  They thought that the second point above was too soft and should refer instead to “the redemption of the Jewish people through the ingathering of exiles.”  Many American and British delegates objected to the implication that they lived in exile and needed to be redeemed.  The resulting language was a compromise.

There was a tension at the Congress arising from criticism being levelled at the American Zionists because there was not a mass immigration or aliyah from the United States to Israel after it was created.  Itzhak Bar-Yehuda, the leader of Mapam (a socialist Zionist party) warned Americans that they were “living under an illusion” and “In ten or fifteen years from now you, too, may be faced with the need for sanctuary.  It may be too late by then for you will be unable to draw out your resources.”

The American delegates obviously took offence to this kind of thinking on the basis that the Jewish experience in America was an exception to Jewish history.

At 75 years old, the Jerusalem Program remains the tie that connects Zionists around the world.  It states that the foundations of Zionism include the unity of the Jewish people, Aliyah, education, fighting against all manifestations of antisemitism, settling the country, and the following which is especially meaningful as Israel approaches an election:

“Strengthening Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state and shaping it as an exemplary society with a unique moral and spiritual character, marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people, rooted in the vision of the prophets, striving for peace and contributing to the betterment of the world.”

If Zionists are found around the world, which we are, then we each have a right and responsibility to advocate for the foundations of Zionism set out in the Jerusalem Program.  This is true for those living outside of Israel, as well as those voting in it.

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Treasure Trove is a program of The Herzl Project. Another program is The #Herzl100. 100 Herzl artifacts will be posted over 100 days on Instagram, FaceBook and TikTok.  The first seventy episodes are now available on YouTube.  Search #Herzl100 on any of these platforms to see the episodes to date, with the Top 28 aretfacts still to come! A new one drops every day.

For more treasures from the Herzl and Zionism Collection of David Matlow, which has appeared weekly in the Treasure Trove column in the Canadian Jewish News (www.thecjn.ca) since February 2021, see https://herzlcollection.com/treasure-trove