NEW YORK — Reform and Orthodox groups traded barbs this week as they engaged in a last-ditch effort to mobilize voters in time for today’s deadline to register for the World Zionist Congress elections.
The WZC is the official representative of diaspora Jewry that determines the policies of the World Zionist Organization.
A seat means influence over the $350 million budget of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which focuses on immigration and absorption and runs religious, political and educational programs across the globe.
In recent years, the influence of organizations affiliated with political parties like Likud and Labor have been replaced by ones affiliated with religious streams — particularly the Reform and Conservative movements — as religious pluralism has become a hot-button issue for American Jewry.
In the last election five years ago, ARZA/World Union, the Reform movement’s Zionist arm, emerged as the clear victor, winning nearly 48 percent of the American ballots.
This translated to 70 of 145 seats allotted to the American delegation, which represents 29 percent of the delegates elected to the Congress, which is slated to take place in Jerusalem in June.
The increased representation led to twice as much funds for its programs — $2 million — from the Jewish Agency.
The Reform movement was riled up this week over a recent radio ad by Dr. Mandell Ganchrow, chairman of the religious Zionist slate, in which Ganchrow urged voter registration from members of Orthodox organizations — two of which, Chabad and Agudath Israel of America, are non-Zionist.
According to Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, executive director of ARZA, that’s a misappropriation of ideology in the effort to get votes.
The American elections, slated for March, are open to all Jews 18 or older who say they subscribe to certain Zionist principles.
But Ganchrow said he never claimed the endorsement of those organizations; he was only appealing to its members.
“This is not Zionist McCarthyism to find out who you belong to and what the history of your organization is,” he said, noting that the Reform movement itself was once anti-Zionist.
“All we said is…every Jew, I don’t care where you’re from, this election is important to you.”
Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel, said he has advised the many confused callers who have heard the ad that participating in the elections would mean “taking a philosophical stance that runs counter to the founders and current leaders of Agudath Israel.”
Ganchrow said he commissioned the 22 one-minute ads to run on CBS radio in New York about two weeks ago because of a lack of enthusiasm in the community.
He estimated the ad cost about $10,000 — about one-tenth of their entire campaign budget.
To promote the election, he said, they also sent short films to 500 rabbis, stuffed literature in 15,000 etrog boxes over Sukkot, and mobilized synagogue phone squads and mass e-mails.
“There is a significant amount of money throughout the world that the Jewish Agency collects, and we want to make sure this money is dedicated to Jewish education and not pluralism and political nonsense,” said Ganchrow.
Pluralism is “a battle that should be done here in the U.S., and the people of Israel should determine their own way of life,” he added.
For his part, Hirsch wouldn’t comment about his organization’s campaign budget or techniques.
But he did say AZRA, through its participation in the WZO and the Jewish Agency, strives to instill religious pluralism in the state of Israel.
“The more influence we have, the more funds we are able to bring towards this objective.”
The main opponents to their vision, he said, are the fervently religious in Israel. According to Hirsch, a Jewish state, in its current mode, is “unsustainable” because it doesn’t reflect 90 percent of world Jewry that is not Orthodox.