Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 28

6. When these decisions were combated by the Revisionists :at their Vienna Conference in September, 1932, the result was Court of Honour proceedings against the Separate Union of Zionist Revisionists, which ended with a condemnation of the Separate Union. In its judgment of January 5th, 1933, the Court : stated ": " The Court of Honour adheres to the view already expressed in previous decisions that the preservation of discipline is a vital condition for the existence of the Zionist movement and of the Zionist Organisation. Its entire strength, and particularly its political power depends upon the maintenance of discipline in our own ranks, and upon the united character of the Organisation." 7. The 18th Congress (Prague, 1933) confirmed the discipline ^resolutions of the General Council adopted in 1932. Nevertheless they were publicly challenged by the Revisionists, who carried their lack of discipline to extremes particularly in the political sphere, and who maintained the theory in regard to the Shekel that they were free by buying the Shekel to acquire the rights of membership in the Zionist Organisation without being subject to the duties of discipline. 8. In order to counteract this state of open revolt verging -on anarchy, whereby innocent Zionists were misled and demoralised, at least by making the duty of discipline known as widely as possible, and to prevent any doubt from arising as regards the obligations entailed by membership of the Zionist Organisation, the Executive decided to embody the principles adopted by the Congress and the General Council in the text of the Shekel receipt in the following terms : " Membership of the Zionist Organisation pre-supposes subordination to its laws and to the resolutions of its bodies. In all Zionist questions the duty of discipline in regard to the Zionist .Organisation must take precedence over the duty of discipline in regard to any other Organisation." The Shekel receipts were printed with this text in September, 1934, and soon afterwards despatched to the various countries. This measure was communicated by the Executive to the representatives of the World Union of General Zionists at the negotiations in London in the middle of October, 1934, and met with their unanimous approval. 9. The attack of the Revisionists was now directed not against the contents of the discipline paragraph but against the fact that it was printed on the Shekel receipt. Although it was only a reproduction of a valid resolution of Congress and of the General Council, and although the formulation of the text of the Shekel receipt has always been within the sole competence of the Executive, a violent campaign was launched against this measure. An attempt to secure its repudiation by the General Council at its meeting in the spring of 1935 failed. 28