World WIZO head arrives in Australia
WIZO is “Zionism in action”, according to its world chairperson Professor Rivka Lazovsky, who arrived in Australia this week.
WIZO is “Zionism in action”, according to its world chairperson Professor Rivka Lazovsky, who arrived in Australia this week.
Lazovsky is in Australia to speak at the 23rd Triennial WIZO Australia conference in Sydney this weekend and will also make an appearance next weekend in Melbourne.
She will also launch a campaign to raise funds for the renovation of the Ahuzat Yeladim boarding school for troubled teenagers in Haifa, WIZO Australia’s flagship project in Israel.
“I am really looking forward to coming to Australia because WIZO Australia is one of our most important federations, a very Jewish and Zionist federation, a very committed federation. For many years they have been doing wonderful work,” she told The AJN by phone from Israel prior to her visit.
“As chairperson of the World WIZO executive, it’s very important for me to meet our chaverot [friends] all over the world and to have a dialogue with them.”
Lazovsky also gave The AJN an indication of the scale of the work WIZO – which celebrated its 93rd anniversary last week – does in Israel.
“We have 850 institutions, hundreds of thousands of babies and children and women and elderly and others under our responsibility,” she said.
“We have 6000 workers, we have more than 200,000 chaverot all over the world in 50 federations.
“Nobody can refute the incredible work we are doing.
“It’s Zionism in action,” she added, explaining that Israel’s Foreign Office often calls on WIZO to show foreign dignitaries its work.
“When they see the work we are doing with children, with women, with youngsters, they are so overwhelmed that they leave all the political ideas they have come with and they refer to the social and education work we are doing,” she said.
“In times when our leaders are afraid to use the word Zionism, Zionist is part of our name, it’s the Women’s International Zionist Organisation. And we wear it with pride.
“So in many ways we are doing very good hasbarah for Israel, whether it is here showing the work we’re doing, or whether it is our federations in the Diaspora.”
Lazovsky is a third-generation WIZO volunteer. Her grandmother was active in WIZO in Vienna prior to World War II and her mother was president of WIZO in Uruguay for many years.
“I was born into WIZO. It’s in my heart, it’s in my blood,” she said. “In Uruguay, since I was a child, during all my life there, I was active all the time in WIZO. And when I came on aliyah to Israel it was the first thing I did, to join the young WIZO group in Israel, because I knew that WIZO is family.
“I feel that I’m doing something meaningful … something very important, not only for the receivers of our services, also for ourselves, the volunteers, and for the State of Israel and for the Jewish people.”
Rivka Lazovsky will be will be the keynote speaker at the 23rd Triennial WIZO Australia conference in Sydney held on July 20-22.
She will also be speaking at Beth Weizmann in Melbourne on Sunday, July 28 at 7.30pm on the topic “WIZO and the Empowerment of Women in Israel”.
GARETH NARUNSKY
WIZO world chairperson Professor Rivka Lazovsky
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