Will “The Surge” in Jewish engagement post-Oct. 7 lead to greater participation of American Jews in the World Zionist Congress elections? Will the major growth in the number of slates — from 15 five years ago to 21 now — favor one ideology over another? Will the results reflect the views of most American Jews or will they reflect which slate is more able to get out the vote?

Those are some of the questions emerging as voting begins on Monday for the American seats in the 39th World Zionist Congress, as various parties, denominations and ideologies vie for control of a budget of more than $1 billion a year, for official positions in the “National Institutions” and for the authority and standing that come with them.   

Americans make up roughly a third of the overall World Zionist Congress, which next convenes in October; Israelis — represented by parties whose number of delegates is determined by their representation in the Knesset — make up another third and Jews from the rest of the world make up the final third.

According to Hebert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement, which is administering the elections, this year is on track to see the largest number of voters since the process moved to being an open election some 35 years ago. Voting runs through May 4.

“There’s 21 slates running now, which is significantly more than the 15 slates that ran last time. There are 2,900 candidates among those slates. Last time, overall they were about 1,800,” Block told eJP. “In terms of the number of people who are pre-registered [to vote] because they were running as a candidate or signing a petition, we have about 11,000 now and were at about 4,000 or 5,000 at this point before the election opened last time.”

Block said he expects to see this translate into a larger number of total voters as well. “Voting had gone down to 57,000 in 2015 and went up to almost 124,000 in 2020. So many [of us] expect to [have] hopefully a higher number,” he said, which would expand the influence of American Jewry in the Congress. 

The expectation of growth reflects both a continuation of an existing trend and also comes amid “The Surge” in Jewish engagement post-Oct. 7. “I think that there’s a lot more people… who want to do something to support [Israel], to express their opinion, to engage in the Zionist movement, to stand up as a Zionist, to show their interest in the Zionist movement, and this is a simple way to do that,” Block said. 

Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World ZIonist Organization representing the Conservative/Masorti movement, agreed that the election was likely to see a higher number of voters, but lamented that it still falls far short of the majority of U.S. Jews. 

“If I would compare the last round of elections to the current ones and to the coming one in 2030, we will see an increase of participation. Still, it’s not a big number. Even if we would double the number of voters in North America, it would not be enough,” Hess said. “The mechanism that Theodor Herzl left us with, which is the World Zionist Congress, allowed Jews to take an active part in designing what Zionism is. But it only works if, in this democratic process, more and more people would feel that their voice is needed.” 

Until now, several people involved in various campaigns told eJP that they have so far been working hard but mainly behind the scenes, laying the groundwork, hiring professional campaign managers in some cases, enlisting volunteer field organizers and organizing town hall events. 

Once the polls open on Monday, that will shift into public outreach — voter drives, events, debates, social media campaigns.

“Some of the slates are cautious on whatever they do beforehand, they do more educational efforts, and then they do the ‘get out the vote’ efforts when people can actually register because you don’t want someone to sign up and think that by joining a mailing list, they registered to vote or already voted,” Block said. 

Most — but not all — of the new slates and their candidates come from the political and religious right. And a major question in this election will be if that abundance of parties brings in new voters, increasing the overall representation of the American right in the World Zionist Congress, or if they will instead be drawing from a similar voting base, resulting in a similar-sized conservative coalition that is simply made up of more parties.

Many of the slates have also specifically brought on board social media influencers and others with extensive online followings, Block noted. One slate, Kol Yisrael, includes a particularly large amount. “It will be interesting to see whether these social media activists and their tweets will result in more votes or not,” he said. 

This year sees a growth in the number of parties specifically representing Israeli Americans, a group that has traditionally not participated in “many of the activities of the general Jewish community in America,” Block said. The 2020 election had one such slate, Israel Shelanu, which has since joined the with progressive Hatikvah slate for this election. This year, there are two dedicated Israeli American parties — AID Coalition (America-Israel Democracy), largely made up of Israeli expats who were active in the anti-judicial overhaul protests, and the Israeli American Council. “The Israeli Americans living in the U.S. want to… show that Israeli-Americans are a political force and a segment of the community that’s unique,” Block said.

Explicit support for the two-state solution is rare among the 21 slates running in this year’s elections, with only two parties — the Reform movement’s Vote Reform and newcomer ANU: A New Union — including it in their platform. Hatikvah, which is endorsed by J Street, National Council of Jewish Women, T’ruah, Reconstructing Judaism and other progressive groups, calls for a “diplomatic pathway” ensuring “freedom, security and sovereignty for both Israelis and Palestinians,” but omits the details of what that would look like. The Conservative movement’s Mercaz USA similarly calls for peace but does not include in its platform what it believes that peace should entail.

Hess stressed the implications of this election: “The World Zionist Congress is an umbrella organization of a few daughter companies that are significant for the future of the State of Israel and that hold significant budgets. One of our daughter companies is the Jewish Agency — with a budget of $440 million a year, and 50% of its board of governors [come from] the Congress,” Hess said. “Another daughter company of ours is Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael — not JNF USA. It’s the biggest NGO that the Jewish people have. It’s the biggest nonprofit. The yearly budget of KKL is between $1 billion-$2 billion a year. It is significant. It’s the biggest collective pot of the Jewish people. It doesn’t belong to the State of Israel. It doesn’t belong to Israelis solely. It belongs to the Jewish people at large. Me, you, a European Jew, a Latin American Jew, a Jew from India, from Africa. It belongs to all of us together.”

Hess, who broadly leads a progressive, pluralist coalition in the Congress, noted that in the 2020 election, the American Haredi party Eretz Hakodesh garnered some 16% of the vote — making it the second largest slate after the Reform movement — despite Haredim making up a far smaller percentage of the American Jewish population. 

“The fact that the biggest Jewish community in the world, North America, which is about a third of the Congress, is not represented in a way that would authentically bring the voice of American Jewry into the Jewish Zionist parliament is a big problem. It creates decision-making that is not as balanced as it should be,” Hess said. “So this is what I’m worried about, and I am hopeful that this time, more more Jews from the pluralistic side of North American Jewry would be part of of this democratic process and would get get their act together in a way that would allow their voices to be heard and the policies to be designed based on their ideology.”

Hess added that while he does not see eye-to-eye with the Haredi party, he is pleased to see its involvement in the World Zionist Congress, representing a victory for the Zionist worldview over the anti-Zionism that used to be nearly ubiquitous in the Haredi community. (This does still remain in many parts of the community, with leading Haredi leader, Rabbi Dov Landau, reiterating his opposition to Zionist institutions last month.)

While the election has major real-world consequences in terms of controlling budgets, offices and positions for the next five years, it is also not an all-or-nothing system. Smaller parties are still represented in the World Zionist Organization. For instance, Hess is the vice chair, while Yaakov Hagoel, representing the World Likud movement, is now the WZO’s chair.

“It’s not as though if you lose by two seats, you’re out for the next five years,” Block said. “There will be different groups that get more votes than others, but everyone has a seat at the table. There’s no coalition and opposition in the Zionist movement.”

The election will be run by the for-profit firm Votem, which also ran the 2020 election. 

In order to vote, people have to be over the age of 18, a citizen or permanent legal resident of the United States, identify as Jewish and affirm the World Zionist Congress’ “Jerusalem Program,” which includes support for Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, aliyah, national service and other Zionist criteria. As Israelis are represented in the Congress based on their votes in the national election, voters also cannot have voted in the November 2022 Knesset election or any future Israeli parliamentary election held prior to July 28.

Voters must also pay a $5 fee, a step that serves several purposes. Symbolically, it represents the “Shekel Hatzioni,” or Zionist Shekel — the membership dues that people had to pay to participate in the Second Zionist Congress. The $5 also covers the costs of running the election, and the fee, which can only be paid by credit card, is used to help ensure that people vote only once and that they pay the fee themselves, as slates are barred from paying voters’ fees or reimbursing them. 

“It can’t be like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame or the MLB All-Star ballot where you can vote 25 times a day from any email account that you can create,” Block said. 

He noted that the cost of voting has gone down over the years. “We lowered the fee from $10 [in 2015] to $7.50 [in 2020]. We’ve now lowered even further to $5. Very few things go down in price over the years,” Block said. “We have counter-inflation.”