WJC Plenary Assembly Roundup: WUJS re-elected as Ex-Officio Vice President, Josh's addresses and delegation to the South

This week our Executive Team attended the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly, the WJC’s highest decision-making forum, where Jewish leaders and delegates from around the world come together to set policy and address the major issues facing global Jewry.

Credit: Shahar Azran

Josh addressed the plenary, commenting on an amendment including WJC's focus on young leadership and the work of the NextGen department in the constitution.

He commended the work of the NextGen department and the work of WJC, particularly under the leadership of Ambassador Lauder, has gone to in empowering young leaders.

He also addressed Ambassador Lauder's previous call for information from communities on campus antisemitism. He offered WUJS's services as a "union of unions", mobilising to share the experience of student leaders on campus.

Credit: Shahar Azran

WUJS was re-elected as one of three International Organizations' Vice Presidents. This means our President sits on the WJC Executive Committee as an Ex-Officio Vice President.

Congratulations to fellow organisations, the Women's International Zionist Organisation and International Council of Jewish Women.

Josh was invited to the inaugural meeting of the new Executive Committee over a private lunch. As the minutes turned to a discussion of WJC's priorities over the coming months, he made an intervention, expressing gratitude for the work WJC has done in advancing young Jewish leadership (in particular Ambassador Lauder for whom it has been a passion project) and calling on the community leaders around the table to work with the young leaders in their community, not just as a tokenistic move, but because we are discussing the very same issues around our tables and bring a fresh perspective to these conversations.

On the final day, Josh joined a delegation to southern Israel to bear witness to the atrocities of October 7. While some scenes were too graphic to share, he documented the experience in real time on our social media platforms. Below is a gallery of selected story posts from the day.