Why the ZOA?

As we are Recovering From the Arab Atrocities, this is the time to together fight for Israel, Judea/Samaria, Jewish Students and against antisemitism!

Watch: Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana: "Vote ZOA Coalition"

Academy Award-winning actor & great Zionist Jon Voight: "Vote ZOA Coalition"

Randy Settenbrino

(March 6, 2025 / Arutz Sheva) There is a dearth of Jewish leadership in almost all the mainstream American Jewish organizations, with the exception of the Zionist Organization of America under Morton Klein's courageous leadership. There is little capacity among most mainstream organizations to present unabashed Jewish interests, unsullied by echoes of dead-end arrangements. The spiritless efforts of our institutions are an affront to committed Jews and an outright detriment to Jewish continuity. We hear calls for a two-state solution, muted responses in the face of campus hate, a lack of resolve to call out Jewish politicians and diplomats who make little to no effort to come to Israel’s defense or to chastise Jews who coddle a Democratic party whose positions and presidency have failed to protect Israel in the UN and have repeatedly threatened Israel to conform or lose arms and aid.

There are many areas about which we need to learn from today's ZOA, but a look at the past can teach us how the late 19th-century to mid-20th century Zionist Organization of America came to be the answer to our most pressing concerns. It still is.

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein presents the ZOA's highest honor to Pres. Donald Trump at ZOA's 2022 Gala in NYC

Founded in 1897, as the Federation of American Zionists, ZOA was the first official Zionist organization in the United States. Richard Gottheil, the first FAZ President, adopted the organization's constitution. Under the Honorable Louis Brandeis it was rebranded the Zionist Organization of America and became instrumental in providing leadership to advance the reunification of the Land and People of Israel. Throughout the darkness and horrors of pogroms and the Holocaust, ZOA laid the cornerstone for the establishment of a Third Commonwealth in Eretz Yisroel, securing the political and financial means necessary to provide a sanctuary to myriads of downtrodden Jewish refugees. ZOA was a major force in the reestablishment of the Jewish Homeland in Eretz Yisroel, as both our sanctuary and fortress against deathly antisemitism.

The Power of Leadership

Louis Brandeis had two very consequential firsts: as a Jewish Supreme Court Justice, and also as a ZOA president. Brandeis was an influential liaison between President Woodrow Wilson and “His Majesty’s Government,” as the Balfour Declaration moved forward. Brandeis played a leading role in persuading both nations to accept the creation of a Jewish homeland.

1914 - 1921

Under the Honorable Louis Brandeis’ leadership, FAZ was rebranded the Zionist Organization of America. ZOA membership increased tenfold to 200,000 members and surpassed Europe’s World Zionist Congress as the primary representative of world Jewry. During World War I, the WZC was in limbo due to a divided allegiance to the different sides in the conflict, but Brandeis helped to create an American Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs on behalf of the World Zionist Organization.

Brandeis made invaluable contributions, but what was needed most was action.

In 1921 at the Cleveland convention, Brandeis was ousted in favor of Louis Lipsky, who espoused a facts-on-the-ground ideology that spoke in real time needs for economic investment in Eretz Yisroel. The practical shift brought political and financial success, resulting in the 1924 merger of the annual Zionist major fund-raising efforts, creating the United Palestine Appeal.

ZOA president Rabbi Silver was a man of legendary proportions who served as president from 1945-47, and his protégé Dr. Emanuel Neumann (1947-49 and 1956-58) were the power base of the major moves by the ZOA which helped to procure statehood.

Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and co-chairman Dr. Emanuel Neumann founded and served on the American Zionist Emergency Council, to represent and promote leadership at a time when communication with Europe and the Holy Land was muted.

Agricultural school in Israel, founded by ZOA, named after Rabbi Silver

VOTE NOW FOR ZOA COALITION, SLATE #15, IN THE WORLD ZIONIST CONGRESS ELECTION!

The revelation of the extent of Nazi atrocities roused American Jewry to assemble delegates at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, where Rabbi Silver broke the hearts of the audience with a visual description of the damaged state of European Jewry, causing many to weep.

“The reconstitution of the Jewish people as a nation in its homeland,” Silver declared, “is not a playful political conceit of ours. . . . It is the cry of despair of a people driven to the wall, fighting for its very life. . . . . From the infested, typhus-ridden ghetto of Warsaw, from the death-block of Nazi-occupied lands where myriads of our people are awaiting execution by the slow or the quick method, from a hundred concentration camps which befoul the map of Europe . . . comes the cry: “Enough, there must be a final end to all this, a sure and certain end!”

Rabbi Silver challenged Jews to act. He didn’t fear to speak to the heart of men’s conscience or cower from concerns of what the Gentiles would think. He was a man of action and encouraged other Jews to be the same.

Are we going to take counsel here of fear of what this one or that one might say, of how our actions are likely to be misinterpreted; or are we to take counsel of our inner moral convictions, of our faith, of our history, of our achievements, and go forward in faith?

He called out the Gentile world for their indifference and he capitalized on a growing sentiment of latent American Zionism.

Abba Hillel Silver told a Zionist audience near the end of 1945 that “our six million dead are a tragic commentary on the state of Christian morality and the responsiveness of Christian conscience.” Had Great Britain and the United States been willing to grant Jewry the same “temporary refuge” accorded to prisoners of war, many lives might have been saved.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt



Although FDR was immensely popular amongst American Jews, Rabbi Silver rightly resented him for his callous handling of the plight of European Jewry. FDR on multiple occasions bypassed and stymied opportunities to save Jews from certain death. FDR’s public response to being asked if due to Kristallnacht he would consider opening immigration to German Jewry:

“That is not in contemplation. We have the quota system.”

Although FDR never officially commented on the Wagner-Rogers Bill, a proposal meant to rescue 20,000 Jewish children, his cousin Laura did make a revealing comment, testifying before Congress:

“20,000 charming children would all too soon grow into 20,000 ugly adults.” Laura Delano Houghteling.

The proposed legislation never made it to a vote. The MS St. Louis, a luxury liner, was refused harbor in Cuba. Her passengers were capable, educated, and professional German Jews. The incident drew quite a bit of attention. The challenge to FDR’s 'benevolence' was answered with an indirect antisemitic trope. At a press conference, he expressed concerns about potential "spies among refugees,” further fueling the narrative that Jewish refugees could be security threats. The St. Louis--with its educated German Jews – was sent back to Europe, to weather the Nazi storm.

Rabbi Silver understood how FDR was detrimental to efforts aimed at saving Jews by refusing to bomb Auschwitz or the train tracks leading to the death camps, curtailing immigration in the US and refusing to intervene on efforts to have England open the passage to Palestine. Brits preferred Jews burn in the ovens rather than unlock the gates to the Holy Land.

After FDR’s death, Republicans gained control of the Senate and House. Rabbi Silver, a Republican with close contacts to the national leadership, was on good terms with Senator Robert Taft from his home state of Ohio. At Silver’s urging, Taft and Senator Robert Wagner of New York, introduced a resolution in 1944, calling on Britain to open the gates to immigration of Jewish refugees to the Holy Land and permit establishment of “a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth”. FDR had the War Department inform Congress the recommendation “would be prejudicial to the successful prosecution of the war.” the Taft-Wagner resolution was shelved until 1945, after FDR’s passing, when the resolution was finally adopted. Rabbi Silver and Dr, Neuman promoted public opinion, actively lobbying politicians to secure support within Congress and the UN to vote for the establishment of a Jewish State.

On May 8, 1947, Rabbi Silver presented the case for a Jewish state before the General Assembly of the United Nations, which passed UN General Assembly Resolution 181. The main legal thrust of the resolution was to terminate the British Mandate and divide the territory into separate Jewish and Arab states, a recommendation the Arabs summarily rejected. Jewish rights as beneficiary of the Mandate continued in accordance with the UN Charter. The end of the Mandate on November 29,1947, effectively granted international recognition for the creation of the State of Israel.