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Zionist Congress
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The Zionist Congress was first convened in 1897, as a sort of parliament of the
Jewish-Zionist world. Every two years, due-paying, registered members throughout
the world elected several hundreds of delegates to the Congress, which convened
for a two week session in one of the major cities in Central or Eastern Europe.
The elections to the congress were based, in fact, on a regional-proportional
basis, where every state was a voting area. The Zionist constitution laid down
that the elections should be direct and secret. Every Congress elected a Zionist
Executive Committee, and as of 1921 all the members of the Executive had to live
in Eretz Yisrael. The rules of procedure of the Congress were originally written
by Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl - founder of the Zionist Movement and foreseer of the
Jewish state - and these were changed from time to time. Due to the difficulty
in convening each Congress more than once, the Congress elected an Actions
Committee, which functioned as a legislating body between Congresses. In the
first Congress there were 15 members in the Committee. In the 22nd Congress
their number reached 77. The origins of many of the parties which still function
in Israel today are from the Zionist Congresses and the
Assembly of Representatives.
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