Voting is underway stateside for the so-called “parliament of the Jewish people.”
The election for the 39th World Zionist Congress, which opened on Monday, will last until May 4, with major ramifications for the allocation of more than $1 billion of funding for Israel and world Jewry and shaping Zionist institutions for the next few years.
The election is the first for the congress since the end of the Covid pandemic, internal Israeli political strife and Oct. 7, and many see it as a referendum on the Israeli government and Jewish organizational leadership.
Elected representatives in the congress have significant influence over the policies and appropriations of the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Keren Hayesod, including in religious pluralism, diaspora relations and building Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
U.S. voters, both on paper and online, will elect 152 delegates, which is about one-third of the 500 seats in the congress. The other 348 are allocated to Israel and the rest of the Jewish Diaspora.
The 22 U.S. organizations or groups, including nine new entities, from 43 U.S. states and territories that are running slates—lists of candidates—in this year’s election are a record. The more than 2,900 candidates on the ballot are a significant increase from 2020 when 14 slates ran about 1,800 candidates.
Each slate will be assigned a proportion of congressional seats based on the percentage of the vote it earns. Unlike in Knesset elections, no minimum percentage threshold is required for a slate to secure a seat in the World Zionist Congress.
Generally held every four to six years since the end of World War II, the election has seen participation ebb and flow. In 2015, it bottomed out at about 57,000 votes. In 2020, it was more than 123,000.
But increased interest this year appears to portend a high vote total.
“There are more people out there and involved and engaged in the different slates, and more people campaigning,” Herbert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement, which organizes the election, told JNS.
“More slates even have a professional style campaign with influencers, campaign managers, coordinators and organizers, and all these things,” Block said.
Voters—who must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and at least 18-years-old by June 30—can register and vote online, or request paper ballots. A $5 registration and voting fee covers costs of operating the election, according to Block.
To be eligible, voters also must maintain primary residence in the United States, be Jewish, not subscribe to another faith and accept the Zionist movement platform the Jerusalem Program, which, in part, “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.”
Those who voted in November 2022 in the Knesset election, or those who vote in a future Knesset election before July 28, are also ineligible.
“The slates are doing their own vigorous campaigning to get the vote out of their segments of the community,” Block told JNS. “There are slates from the Russian-speaking community. There are slates in the Sephardi community, in all the different religious streams, with several different Orthodox slates.”
This year, slates are also focusing on the Israeli-American community, which has historically been less active in Zionist movement activities, according to Block.
About a decade ago, the Reform and Conservative movements claimed about 56% of the seats. But Orthodox slates have caught up in election cycles since, and in 2020, the chareidi Eretz HaKodesh slate – founded under the guidance of Rav Chaim Kanievsky zt”l and Rav Gershon Edelstein zt”l – entered for the first time, claiming some 28,000 votes.
“This year, more attention is being paid to the fact that the election will govern over $1 billion that elected representatives will disburse,” Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, told JNS. “I think that it was not appreciated five years ago just how much money was at stake.”
The U.S. Orthodox parties were more organized in their get-out-the-vote efforts last time and were able to control the direction of a valuable portion of the funding available, according to Sarna. “That’s how politics works,” he said.
This year’s congress is set to convene in Yerushalayim from Oct. 28 to 30 to vote on several critical resolutions and policy matters.
The slates, listed randomly on the ballot, include Eretz HaKodesh, Shas, Vision, Vote Reform, Kol Israel, Orthodox Israel Coalition-Mizrachi, ANU: A New Union, Israel365 Action, Achdut Israel, Am Yisrael Chai, Aish Ha’am, Beyachad, AID Coalition, ZOA Coalition, Hatikvah, Mercaz USA, Dorshei Torah V’Tzion, Americans4Israel, The Jewish Future, American Forum for Israel, Israeli American Council and Herut North America. JNS
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