Preparing for Statehood

Abstract

In the wake of the Second World War that wreaked havoc on the European Jewish Diaspora, the stage was set for drastic change in the Zionist movement and in its positions and tactics. The members of the Zionist movement expected that such change would emerge in the preparations for and in the course of the World Zionist Congress, scheduled for Basle in December 1946. The Twenty-Second World Zionist Congress opened in a singularly gloomy atmosphere. Although hundreds of thousands of Jews throughout the world had joined the Zionist movement in the aftermath of the Holocaust, so that the number of registered members had almost reached the two-million mark, there was no escape from the sense of tremendous loss cast over the congress by the missing European Jewish communities and by the many thousands of members and Zionist leaders who had perished in the Holocaust. Throughout the entire Congress, the controversy over tactics was inextricably entwined with the struggle for prestige and position, especially that of the presidency of the Zionist movement, with the majority of the Yishuv's Mapai delegates supporting Ben–Gurion's attempt to demote Weizmann to the post of honorary president, which the ageing ‘chief’ immediately declined.