(JNS) A campaign to delay elections for the 39th World Zionist Congress, the supreme body of the World Zionist Organization, which represents world Jewry, appeared on the point of success until it went down to defeat during a meeting of the presidium of the Zionist General Executive on Tuesday.
After a heated debate at the meeting, held online, supporters of delay failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority of those present. Seventeen presidium members voted in favor and 12 against with three abstentions.
The defeat took supporters of delay by surprise. Since postponement was first broached some two months ago, those supporting the idea held the upper hand.
The change appears to be due to the Likud Party, which had been divided into two camps on the issue, but ultimately decided elections should proceed on schedule. This may have led others, such as the Shas Party, to join with Likud.
Pesach Lerner, founder and chairman of Eretz HaKodesh, an Orthodox Jewish party that firmly opposed delay, praised the outcome.
“In our opinion, pushing off the election would have disenfranchised so many Jews around the world that want to connect to Israel and be part of this election,” Lerner told JNS. “So we are glad that enough of our colleagues agreed and voted to keep the election for the Congress in 2025 as originally scheduled.”
Lerner called on everyone to conduct the elections “in the spirit of achdus [brotherhood] and unity and in continued support of our brothers and sisters in Israel.”
Those wanting to put off elections, which included many in the World Zionist Organization (WZO) leadership, argued that it was desirable due to the emergency situation in which Jews now find themselves, specifically the Gaza war and rising antisemitism.
Small federations
Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the Zionist Executive, which runs the day-to-day affairs of the World Zionist Organization, told JNS before Tuesday’s vote, “In the last few months, we’ve had requests from many of our Zionist federations all over the world, and especially from small places, asking to delay the coming Congress and the elections.
“People felt it’s not the time for politics,” he said, saying the “vast majority” supported postponing the election.
Lerner disputed this. He noted that the three largest Zionist federations, those of the United States, Canada and Great Britain and Ireland, expressed a neutral stance when asked to take a position on an election delay.
Hess argued that elections are easier in relatively wealthy countries such as the U.S., reiterating that it was the smaller countries for which they would be a burden.
However, Lerner insisted that the call for delay came from many of the WZO’s directors and professionals, not small Jewish communities.
“Interestingly, the question is coming from Israel, from the WZO building, it is not coming from the people about whom they are discussing,” Lerner wrote in a July 16 letter to the Zionist Supreme Court.
Some JNS spoke with said WZO’s leadership wants to halt elections because it fears a shift in voting patterns will cost them their positions.
Hess called the accusation “ridiculous.”
“We are in an emergency situation,” he said. “This is a serious decision that is conducted in a very measured process that has a broad consensus from right to left. Not only is the accusation wrong, it’s truly cynical.”
Lerner focused on the logic behind a delay. He said it makes no sense. “The reason they said we shouldn’t have elections are the exact reasons why we should have elections. It’s because of the Gaza war and antisemitism that Diaspora Jewry wants to connect.”
He noted that the current crisis didn’t stop 50,000 Jews from participating in the Israel Day Parade in New York on June 2, which WZO’s Chairman Yaakov Hagoel, and numerous Israeli ministers attended, nor prevent the WZO from coordinating the First Latin American Zionist Congress in Mexico, nor keep Bnei Akiva USA, a youth division of World Mizrachi, from planning to sell out New York City’s 20,000-seat Madison Square Garden for a concert featuring an Israeli pop singer.
The American Zionist Movement, the Zionist federation in the U.S., was going full-steam ahead and had already started arranging for elections as planned, Lerner said.
New parties had formed. Those parties were upset about the proposed delay as they had invested time and effort in meeting the necessary deadlines under the assumption that elections were going ahead as scheduled. They felt they had the rug pulled out from them.
“We’re right now going through a tremendous effort on building up a new organization, a new slate, and they didn’t say, ‘Hey, wait, for another six months,’” Jonathan Barsade, president and founder of the American Israel Democracy Coalition (AID-Coalition), told JNS.
“We’re building up momentum now and if the elections are postponed by another year, it’s like taking the wind out of our sails,” he said.
Barsade said his party never accepted the rationale for the delay. Noting that the AID-Coalition is made up of ex-pat Israelis living in the U.S, he said, “There’s always uncertainty in Israel. Growing up in Tel Aviv, you don’t let war change the lifestyle because then that’s letting the other side win.
“Also, how democratic is it when you start to postpone elections? During World War II even the United States held elections on time,” he added.
Right vs. left
Pesach Wolicki, spokesman for the newly formed One Jewish State Party, also said the arguments for delay didn’t add up. “This election is held online. It’s an election [mostly] by Americans. It’s not like Israelis vote in this election. How does the war in Israel affect things,” he said.
Wolicki said the war was a “cover” and an “excuse.”
For him, the issue is one of right vs. left. Until now, a left-wing secular establishment has enjoyed a tight grip on power in the World Zionist Congress, he said.
“They know, based on what happened in 2020, that the tide is shifting, and more Orthodox Jews, and more right-wing Jews, who are not part of their establishment, who are not part of their club, [are becoming active],” Wolicki said. “It’s like so many other things in our political world, where there’s this entrenched establishment that looks after its own interest.”
In the 2020 election, 100,000 people voted in the U.S., up from 57,000 the previous elections. It’s a tiny fraction of the American Jewish population, he noted. “I think they like it that way. They don’t want more people knowing about these elections. They don’t want the elections to actually happen. They want to hold on to as much of their power as possible.”
Wolicki added: “If the World Zionist Congress actually wanted maximum participation from the Jewish people, which is what you would think they would want, then this is the best time to have an election, because Jews are more engaged with the question of the Jewish future now than they’ve been in decades.”