By Asaf Elia-Shalev
More than 230,000 American Jews voted in the 2025 election for the World Zionist Congress, nearly doubling participation over the last election five years ago, according to preliminary results released June 5 by the American Zionist Movement.
The tally excludes nearly 20,000 votes determined to have been cast fraudulently and disqualified.
Delegates from the US — nearly one-third of the 525-member Congress — number 152.
They will meet this October in Jerusalem to help decide how over $1 billion will be allocated to Jewish and Israeli institutions.
The right-wing and Orthodox bloc repeated its strength from the last election, once again securing a majority of votes.
The top vote-getter among individual slates was the Vote Reform slate, representing the Reform movement, with about 48,000 votes.
The liberal-leaning slate won some 16,000 more votes than the last election, when it also placed first, but its vote share dropped from 26% to 21%.
“This is more than just a win for our slate — it is a resounding mandate for the values we champion,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, said.
Meet some of the intermountain Jewish running on World Zionist slates
The three largest Orthodox parties garnered a total of 88,000 votes.
Am Yisrael Chai came in second place with about 32,00 votes, or about 14% of the total. An Orthodox voice, the slate proved successful in courting Jewish college students and young professionals with its focus on pro-Israel advocacy, Jewish pride and promoting “love of Torah.”
Eretz Hakodesh, an Orthodox slate whose debut in the last election tipped the balance of power at the World Zionist Congress in favor of the right-wing bloc for the first time, placed third with about 29,000 voters.
The Orthodox Israel Coalition-Mizrachi, the political arm of modern Orthodoxy, secured about 27,000 votes.
Mercaz USA, representing Conservative Judaism, was fourth with 28,000 votes.
In all, 22 slates competed in the US election, up from 14 in 2020 — a sign of growing interest in Israel among American Jews. The election, administered by the American Zionist Movement, took place from March 10 to May 4, with 224,237 valid votes cast online and an additional 6,020 by mail.
“American Jews have spoken — through their record-breaking turnout in the 2025 World Zionist Congress election, they have powerfully demonstrated that Zionism in the United States is not only alive and well but stronger than ever,” said AZM executive director Herbert Block in a statement.
“Thanks to this historic participation in the election, US Jewry is poised to make an indelible mark when the World Zionist Congress gathers in October.”
The record turnout was marred by the discovery of what election officials described as “serious voting irregularities.”
According to the AZM, an investigation uncovered schemes involving prepaid credit cards and anonymized emails used to fraudulently submit ballots on behalf of five slates. A sixth slate was found to have benefited from invalid paper registrations.
As a result, 18,948 ballots were disqualified and excluded from the vote totals. Officials have not named the slates involved and say further penalties may follow pending the results of continuing investigations and legal challenges.
The AZM said it would release the final delegate allocations after additional reviews and once pending cases before the AZM Tribunal and the Zionist Supreme Court, the World Zionist Congress’ judicial authority in Jerusalem, are resolved.
The World Zionist Congress, established by Theodor Herzl in 1897, meets every five years and serves as the governing body of the World Zionist Organization.
It influences leadership appointments and funding decisions across major Israeli and Jewish institutions, including the Jewish Agency, which is involved in immigration and the Jewish National Fund, which has power over land use across large swaths of the country.
The 39th Congress will convene in Jerusalem from Oct. 28-30.
