Zion in Zurich

A happy man last week was Chaim Weizmann, goateed London chemist, president of the World Zionist Organization. Fortnight ago, when 322 delegates gathered in Zurich for the 16th biennial Zionist congress, he was less happy. For he was the appointed spokesman of a great project and in the bearded assemblage he saw many a gleaming, antagonistic eye. The project (in motion for six years) was the foundation of an All-Jewish Union, embracing both Zionists and non-Zionists, for the upbuilding of Palestine. "A Jewish national home, . . ." said Dr. Weizmann, "is no longer the concern of Zionists alone. It must of necessity become a centre which attracts the energies of Jews everywhere."

Last week the proposition was put to vote. It passed by the whelming count of 230 to 30, with 50 not voting through abstention or absence. Many of Dr. Weizmann's anticipated opponents--orthodox Zionists, Laborite Zionists, radical Zionists--submerged their separate complaints to favor the central issue.

Stoutly opposed was the great, bass-voiced Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise of Manhattan. While he is inclined to favor all-Jewish union, he regards the present Zionist leadership as weak, inadequate. Also opposed was the revisionist group, which is dissatisfied with the powerful conduct of the Zionist cause.

All-Jewish union is as simple in principle as it will be necessarily complex in practice. It means that Zionists, working for the growth of Jewish Palestine politically and in every other way, will be joined in spurring that growth by non-Zionists, whose interest is non-political and extends to other Jewish colonization projects (such as that in Soviet Russia).

The Congress closed with the election of a coalition executive board, headed by Dr. Weizmann including three names famed in U. S. Jewry: Lotus Lipsky, Zionist editor of Manhattan, and Publicist Henrietta Szold and Rabbi Meyer Berlin, two one-time Manhattanites now living in Jerusalem. All eyes then turned toward Zurich Town Hall and the first council meeting of the All-Jewish Union.