The Deputy Secretary General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, EAJC Representative in Israel Haim Ben Yakov has been elected Vice President of the PEN Club of the State of Israel.

The Israeli PEN Club was founded in 1930 by Chaim Nachman Bialik, and has been the gathering point for many of Israel's most potent creative powers.

On July 22nd, a meeting of an initiative group took place in Tel-Aviv, and a renewed PEN Club of the State of Israel was created as a part of the Federation of Writer's Unions. The current PEN Club's position is that it is a community of those who have made significant advances in self-knowledge through the written word and as part of Jewish self-discovery. The PEN Club of the State of Israel aims for the integration and interaction between Jewish cultural figures around the world. The community plans to find and support talented people who have shown themselves in Jewish self-discovery through the written world in Israel and other countries, as well as to aid in protection of Jewish and Israeli rights.

On August 2, a seminar and opening of the PEN Club will take place. The seminar will nominate and decorate two people who meet the abovementioned criteria and live in Israel. In September, the PEN Club will hold a creative evening of the Informprostranstvo newspaper, which is a cultural studies attachement to the Novosti Nedeli (“Weekly News”) newspaper. In December. The PEN Club plans to hold a seminar that will include creative seminars divided into sections and directionss of activity, the reception and decoration of foreign nominates of the PEN Club.

The meeting of the initiative group has elected the PEN Club Presidium, which includes Ephraim Bauch (President), Evgeniy Ben' (Chairman), Haim Ben Yakov (Vice President), writers Yakov Schehter, David Schehter, Evgeniy Minin, Michael Yudson, and scribe of holy books Shmuel Wolfman.