The 38th World Zionist Congress of the World Zionist Organization opened on Tuesday ,October 20th, 2020 for the first time in history online.
The Congress was opened with greetings by Zionist Congress elder Mr. Gaston Sayada.
President Reuven Rivlin then brought greetings and said: "This past year when the whole country closed its borders and gathered within itself to fight the virus and its consequences, we have unfortunately been prevented from meeting. However, we continue to work together to further our common goals.
We endeavor:
To strengthen the connection between us.
To continue to enable Jewish and Zionist education in our new environment.
To fight anti-Semitism that threatens to raise its ugly head in such moments of crisis.
To help every Jew who wants to make Aliyah and immigrate to Israel in order to continue to fortify the foundations of Zionism's most important enterprise - Our Jewish and Democratic State-Israel."
"Although the Jewish people are made up of communities from different cultures and are divided between opposing political camps, we all have a common fate and destiny. If we continue to believe in our common destiny, there is no challenge that we cannot beat and no crisis that we cannot overcome."
Afterwards, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke and said: "Thanks to our strength, we have brought historic peace, we will bring more peace agreements with more countries." when relating to the peace with the UAE and Bahrain.
"This peace expresses a recognition of the legitimacy of the Jewish State in the homeland of its ancestors." Referring to the Coronavirus, the Prime Minister said that "the fight against the pandemic is ongoing and non-stop. From Theodor Herzl we learned that Zionism is a chain of challenges and we are determined to overcome this virus as well. It is a difficult struggle but it also has emotional moments. For example, the picture of thousands of new immigrants, olim, arriving in Israel and being received by us with open arms."
The vote for the election of the Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, his deputies and members of the Zionist Executive, will be held on Thursday .
Later in the congress, speeches will be delivered by Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Prof. Dan Arieli, Prof. Amnon Shashua, founder of Mobileye, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and others.
The 38th Zionist Congress is attended by 720 delegates from 30 countries around the world and is spread over three days of discussions, every afternoon, to coincide with the time in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Israel.