Zionism - Organization

Organization

The multi-national, worldwide Zionist movement is structured on representative democratic principles. Congresses are held every four years (they were held every two years before the Second World War) and delegates to the congress are elected by the membership. Members are required to pay dues known as a shekel. At the congress, delegates elect a 30-man executive council, which in turn elects the movement's leader. The movement was democratic from its inception and women had the right to vote.

Until 1917, the World Zionist Organization pursued a strategy of building a Jewish National Home through persistent small-scale immigration and the founding of such bodies as the Jewish National Fund (1901 — a charity that bought land for Jewish settlement) and the Anglo-Palestine Bank (1903 — provided loans for Jewish businesses and farmers). In 1942, at the Biltmore Conference, the movement included for the first time an express objective of the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.

The 28th Zionist Congress, meeting in Jerusalem in 1968, adopted the five points of the "Jerusalem Program" as the aims of Zionism today. They are:

• Unity of the Jewish People and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life
• Ingathering of the Jewish People in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through Aliyah from all countries
• Strengthening of the State of Israel, based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace
• Preservation of the identity of the Jewish People through fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education, and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values
• Protection of Jewish rights everywhere

Since the creation of modern Israel, the role of the movement has declined and it is now a peripheral factor in Israeli politics, though different perceptions of Zionism continue to play a role in Israeli and Jewish political discussion.