Voting opens in election for WZC

(JTA) — Voting March 10 in an election that gives American Jews a rare chance to directly shape Israel’s future.

The U.S. election for seats in the 39th World Zionist Congress will help determine the balance of power in the legislative authority of a Zionist organization founded by Theodore Herzl 128 years ago.

Influence over $5 billion in funding for Jewish causes is at stake, as is authority over quasi-governmental institutions such as the Jewish Agency, which plays a central role in immigration to Israel, and the Jewish National Fund, which owns 13 percent of Israeli land.

Any Jewish adult living in the United States can vote between now and May 4 as long as they accept a set of Zionist principles and pay a $5 registration fee.

At the heart of this year’s election is a fierce ideological battle between liberal and right-wing Orthodox factions, each seeking to shape the future of Zionist institutions and their financial priorities at a pivotal time in Israel’s history. The results will impact key issues such as religious pluralism, funding for Jewish education, settlement expansion and Israel-Diaspora relations.

“This election is about nothing less than the soul of the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Josh Weinberg, who heads the campaign for the Reform movement’s liberal slate of candidates. “There are multiple competing visions over what it means to have a Jewish state and essentially to be Jewish. We can help decide some of those things through a democratic process.”

Jews in the United States lean left as a whole, but that’s no guarantee of representation in the congress because only a small fraction of them vote. Of nearly 6 million American Jewish adults, only 125,000 voted in the 2020 election, which was a massive increase over the 56,000 votes cast in 2015. The highest rate of participation ever came in 1987, when about 211,000 voters cast their ballots.

Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, casts the issue of low turnout as a “shande,” or shame, that threatens the pluralism that Zionism was founded on. He’s hoping he can raise awareness about the election over the next few months by speaking to congregations and other types of gatherings.

“If the congress is called ‘the parliament of the Jewish people’ it should reflect the makeup of world Jewry,” he said. “That’s why I am investing many hours every day in order to convince the Jews of the diaspora to make their voice heard.”