The B’nai B’rith announced today that President Itzhak Ben Zvi and Premier David Ben Gurion will address its triennial convention in Jerusalem this month. Fifteen hundred delegates and other participants will begin leaving next week for the five-day convention which opens May 25.
The convention will end Philip Klutznick’s six-year administration as B’nai B’rith president. He declined a third three-year term, urging “a limit on any organizational office in order to keep open the avenues to an expanding Jewish leadership.” He was recently elected chairman of the Presidents’ Conference, a consultative assembly of 17 presidents of major national Jewish organizations.
Two possible successors to Mr. Klutznick have been mentioned as leading contenders. They are Label A. Katz, of New Orleans, chairman of B’nai B’rith’s Youth Commission and an active leader in Jewish affairs in the South; and Herman Fineberg, a member of the National Commission of the Anti-Defamation League and recently elected president of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, Pa. B’nai B’rith elections are “from the floor.” There are no nominating committees.
The convention will feature a three-part symposium in which American and Israeli leaders discuss “the essentials of modern Jewish life.” Among the participants will be Dr. Nahum Goldmann, chairman of the Jewish Agency: Dr. Walter Eytan, Director-General of the Israel Foreign Ministry: Moshe Sharett, former Prime Minister: and Dr. Moshe Davis, Provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
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