What is the Zionist Congress?
The Zionist Congress is the supreme institution and
legislature of the World Zionist
Organization (WZO).
The congress meets once every four
years and formulates policy and elects and
oversees the WZO's institutions. It has approximately 600 delegates, of which 38 percent are Israeli, 29 percent
American and 33 percent from the rest of the world. Since 1951, delegates
have been chosen by means of country-wide agreements. The Israeli delegation
is also not elected directly, rather it is appointed according to the relative number
of each Zionist party's Knesset members.
The Zionist Congress elects the
Executive, which runs WZO affairs in Israel and in the Diaspora, and the
Zionist General Council, which meets once a year and to which the Executive is
subordinate.
The WZO was founded at the First
Zionist Congress (1897) as part of the first approved Zionist program, known as the Basle
Program.
Since the establishment of the State
of Israel in 1948, the Zionist Congresses are now held in Jerusalem
and the bulk of the deliberations revolve around Israel-Diaspora relations,
the centrality of Israel for the Jewish people and immigration to Israel as a Zionist
obligation.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |