Starting an Arzenu Group

ARZENU

GUIDELINES: BECOMING A CONSTITUENT ORGANIZATION

The formal steps to become an ARZENU constituent are fairly simple.

1. At one of your first meetings, you will want to take an official vote by the members that they want to become part of ARZENU - the International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists and that they subscribe to the Jerusalem Program of the World Zionist Organization and that they accept the rules and regulations and obligations of the World Zionist Organization. Each one must then sign a form that says this - see attached a sample document.

2. Collect an annual membership fee which can be a symbolic amount. Each year, every member of ARZENU is requested to make a minimal donation to KKL/JNF or to Keren Hayesod, so that this fee could be used for that purpose. Probably a minimal amount would be a few Euros or dollars or the local currency. If you want to charge a bit more to cover other expenses, you can do that too, but you don't have to.

3. You will probably want to establish a constitution or other legal document of incorporation (whatever is required by local law) to become an official organization in the country. The organization must reflect in its incorporation document that it adheres to the basic principles of justice, equality and democracy. If there is a Zionist Federation in your country you should contact them to see if they can assist with getting set up and registered with the authorities.

4. Make an official request to the Board of ARZENU asking to be admitted as a constituent member organization of ARZENU - the International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists once the members have voted to do this.

5. Normally, once you have been accepted as a constituent member organization of ARZENU, you can apply to the local Zionist Federation to become a recognized member of the Federation.

If you are interested in getting some ideas of the kinds of things that other ARZENU organizations are doing, you can look at a few of the web sites for the English-speaking affiliates -

http://www.arzacanada.org/ Arza Canada

http://www.arza.org/ARZA USA 

Pro-Zion UK http://www.prozion.org.uk/links.htm

You can also check out the Dept. of Zionist Activities of the World Zionist Organization, which has lots of educational and informative material =http://www.doingzionism.org.il/ and the Hagshama Dept. of the WZO, which deals with young adult activitieshttp://www.hagshama.org.il/en/default.asp

For further information and help contact: Dalya Levy, Executive Director ARZENU, International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists, dalya@arzenu.org.il or call +972-54-644-2427.