Pay a shekel – and get to vote who represents us in Israel - The Jewish Chronicle

UK Jews are being invited to go to the polls in June – in order to choose their delegates to the 39th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem in October.

Registration opened on Tuesday this week to enable members of the community to cast their votes.

Elections have not always been held in the past as the various Zionists movements have often negotiated an agreement to allocate the UK seats among them, based on the strength of their memberships.

But you do not have to be a member of a Zionist group to take part. All you have to do is to agree to support the principles of the WZO, pay a pound registration fee – known as the “Zionist shekel” – and provide proof of identity. There will be no other checks, but an external election company has been engaged to monitor proceedings.

The online poll will be open for several days in the second week in June. In the USA, where the election is currently taking place and is running over a longer period, more than 50,000 people voted in the first week.

With just 19 seats out of 525, the UK is a minor player in an organisation naturally dominated by Israel and the USA. But British representatives can rise to prominence: Rabbi Lea Mühlstein of the Ark Synagogue in Northwood, who is chair of the Zionist Federation, recently chaired Arzenu, the Progressive Zionist world movement.

One of the main tasks of the Congress will be to decide who will get to run the WZO’s departments, which include education in the diaspora. But perhaps, more significantly, it will also determine WZO representation on related bodies, such as the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod (the United Israel Appeal), which, combined, have an annual budget in the region of £750 million.

Despite the small number of British seats up for grabs, they are being fiercely contested with nine parties in the running.

Apart from the long established religious Zionist movement Mizrachi, two other Orthodox slates will enter the race here for the first time: Eretz Hakodesh, which will be making its pitch to those on the religious right of the spectrum, and the Sephardi Shas Olami UK.

Meanwhile the Progressive religious movements and Masorti have joined forces this year in a single slate, Our Israel.

Also bidding for seats are the United Zionists under the Kol Israel banner, the Israel Solidarity Campaign, run by the Over the Rainbow coalition, and the youth group Hanoar Hatzioni.

The two political right-wing groups, Likud UK and Herut UK, have also agreed to unite on one ticket, competing as Jabotinsky’s Israel (named after the founder of revisionist Zionism).

On the political left, Meretz UK and the Jewish Labour Movement, will appear jointly on the ballot paper as “For a Democratic Israel”.

At the last Congress five years ago, the British delegation was made up of four representatives each from Mizrachi and the Progressive Pro-Zion; two each from the Masorti Mercaz, Likud UK and FZY; and one each from the Jewish Labour Movement, the Over the Rainbow coalition, Herut UK, Meretz and Hanoar Hatzioni.