50 | MAY 11 • 2023 

ERETZ

I

srael, like most other countries, has a 
parliament (the Knesset) and considers 
Jews worldwide to be part of Am Yisrael, 
the Jewish nation family.
How are Jews spread around approxi-
mately 80 countries thus represented?
“The WZO is the democratically elected 
parliament of the Jewish people,
” says Tova 
Dorfman, new World Zionist Organization 
president and former Oak Park and 
Farmington Hills resident.
“Yet, few Jews around the world really are 
aware of the WZO or what it does, unless 
they’re involved. For example, the last WZO 
elections in 2020 brought out 132,000 voters 
in the U.S., more than ever and more than 
double the turnout for the 2015 elections,
” 
she said, “but still a very small amount of 
the potential among the 5.5 million or so 
American Jews.
”
Dorfman, 64, took her post Feb. 1. “The 
president is elected by the executive com-
mittee, which includes department heads 
and partners in the WZO. They met in 
January, electing me unanimously with no 
abstentions,
” she said. This occurred follow-
ing an agreement between the Likud faction 

and Yesh Atid, her political home.
“I am hopeful that together, all the fac-
tions and organizations that are members 
of the World Zionist Organization will 
continue to work in unity for the fulfillment 
of the Zionist vision in the 75th year of our 
independence,
” said Yaakov Hagoel, WZO 
chairman.
Dorfman’s first formal introduction to 
world Jewry was at the 39th World Zionist 
Congress, April 19-21, often referred to as 
the “parliament of the Jewish people.
” The 
Congress, which is the WZO’s supreme 
ideological and policy-making body, makes 
key decisions on how to allocate some 
$1 billion annually to support Israel and 
world Jewry.
“One of my goals is awareness, including 
letting Jews know there are elections every 
five years,
” Dorfman said.
Yet, while elections “do give people the 
opportunity to vote for something that 
actually can make the difference,
” she hopes 
“more people become engaged through 
involvement with Zionism, organizations 
that can exercise a lot of influence, and the 
Zionist enterprise, all stronger in the ’70s 

and ’80s,
” she said.
Twenty-nine percent of the World Zionist 
Congress’s 500 delegates are elected by U.S. 
Jews on behalf of their diaspora organiza-
tions. “There is a lot of potential to influ-
ence policy,
” she said. 
Issues include equality, access, social and 
economic justice, and pluralism, which are 
important to many American Jews.
“Ms. Dorfman is taking office in the 
midst of facing great and important chal-
lenges for the Jewish people and the Zionist 
world,
” Hagoel said.
Dorfman is up to the task. Her profes-
sional career model is about innovative, cre-
ative programming and has been singularly 
successful in bringing around to the table 
key individuals and institutions to create an 
invaluable synergy.
She hopes more “get involved in poli-
cy making and distribution of funds that 
reflect the interests of American Jews, 
Detroit Jews,
” she said.
Dorfman is the first woman to fill the 
position, some 36 years after Ruth Popkin 
was the first woman to chair the 1987 
World Zionist Congress Presidium and 

Detroiter-Israeli elected 
president of the worldwide 
‘Jewish Parliament.’

New
President
at WZO

NATHANIEL WARSHAY 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Tova 
Dorfman

COURTESY OF THE WORLD ZIONIST ORGANIZATION

