Editing World Jewish Congress (section)

===Foundation (1936)===
After two more preparatory conferences in 1933 and 1934, the First Plenary Assembly, held in Geneva in August 1936, established the World Jewish Congress as a permanent and democratic organization. Elections for delegates to that assembly had to be according to democratic principles, namely secret, direct, and based on proportional representation. The 52 American delegates, for instance, were chosen at an Electoral Convention which met in Washington, DC, on 13/14 June 1936 and which was attended by 1,000 representatives from 99 communities in 32 US states.<ref>World Jewish Congress, Unity in Dispersion – A History of the World Jewish Congress, New York, 1948, p. 46</ref>

The World Jewish Congress's expressed goal was Jewish unity and the strengthening of Jewish political influence to assure the survival of the Jewish people and promote the establishment of a Jewish state.<ref name="Garai, pg. 10 and 20"/> 230 delegates representing 32 countries gathered for the first WJC assembly. Addressing a press conference in Geneva, [[Stephen S. Wise]] assailed German Jews for opposing the WJC. He said: "I must make clear that the congress is not a parliament nor an attempt at a parliament. It is nothing more than an assembly of representatives of those Jewries which choose to associate themselves in defense of Jewish rights. The congress will not be wholly representative until all Jews choose to be represented by it."<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=http://archive.jta.org/article/1936/08/09/2835383/world-jewish-congress-set-to-open-tonight-8-point-program-mapped|title=World Jewish Congress Set to Open Tonight; 8 Point Program Mapped|date=9 August 1936}}</ref>

[[File:Nahum Goldmann.jpg|thumb|[[Nahum Goldmann]], co-founder and president of the World Jewish Congress from 1949 to 1977]]
Although the delegates elected the US federal judge and erstwhile president of the American Jewish Congress [[Julian Mack]] as honorary president of the WJC, Wise was appointed as chairman of the WJC Executive and thus ''de facto'' leader of the congress. [[Nahum Goldmann]] was named chair of the Administrative Committee.<ref name="Garai, pg. 10 and 20"/> The WJC Executive immediately drew up a declaration urging the British government not to halt immigration to Palestine which was presented to British diplomats in Bern, Switzerland.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.jta.org/article/1936/08/17/2835437/world-congress-leaders-to-see-british-envoy-on-palestine-today|author=JTA|title=World Congress Leaders to See British Envoy on Palestine Today, 16 August 1936|date=17 August 1936}}</ref>

The WJC chose Paris as its headquarters with a liaison office to the [[League of Nations]] in Geneva, first headed by the Swiss international lawyer and WJC Legal Advisor [[Paul Guggenheim]] and later by [[Gerhart Riegner]], who initially served as Guggenheim's secretary.<ref>Gerhart Riegner – Never Despair: Sixty Years in the Service of the Jewish People and of Human Rights, published by Ivan R. Dee, 2006</ref>

In its fight against growing anti-Semitism in Europe, the WJC pursued a two-pronged approach: the political and legal sphere (mainly lobbying of the [[League of Nations]] and public statements) and  organizing a boycott of products from Nazi Germany. Given the weakness of the [[League of Nations]] vis-à-vis Germany and the successful efforts by the Nazi regime to stave off an economic boycott, neither approach proved very effective.<ref>World Jewish Congress, Unity in Dispersion – A History of the World Jewish Congress, New York, 1948, pp. 83–110</ref>

Following the November 1938 [[Kristallnacht]] pogroms against Jews in Germany in which at least 91 Jews were killed and many synagogues and Jewish shops were destroyed, the WJC issued a statement: "Though the Congress deplores the fatal shooting of an official of the German Embassy in Paris by a young Polish Jew of seventeen, it is obliged to protest energetically against the violent attacks in the German press against the whole of Judaism because of this act and, especially, to protest against the reprisals taken against the German Jews after the crime."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.roizen.com/ron/grynszpan.htm|first=Ron|last=Roizen |title=Herschel Grynszpan: the Fate of A Forgotten Assassin, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 1, No.2., 1986, pp. 217–228}}</ref>

With the outbreak of [[World War II]] in September 1939, the WJC moved to Geneva to facilitate communications with Jewish communities in Europe. In the summer of 1940, by which time most of Europe had fallen under [[Nazi]] occupation, the headquarters were moved to New York to share office space with the American Jewish Congress, and a special WJC office was set up in London. The British Section of the WJC was tasked with acting as the European representative of the organization.<ref>World Jewish Congress, Unity in Dispersion – A History of the World Jewish Congress, New York, 1948, pp. 122–123</ref>

Some of the personnel who worked in the WJC's European offices immigrated to the United States when the WJC moved its headquarters there. At the New York office in the 1940s, the major departments were: Political Department, Institute of Jewish Affairs (research and legal work), Relief and Rescue, Department for Culture and Education (or Culture Department), and Organization Department. In 1940, the WJC opened a representative office in Buenos Aires, Argentina.<ref name="americanjewisharchives.org"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2587504540/comit-des-delegations-juives.html|first=Nathan|last=Feinberg|title=Comité des Délégations Juives}}</ref>