Diaspora Jewry
The former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations wants to focus on improving relations with the Diaspora, involving the younger generation, drawing more visitors to Israel and alleviating bureaucratic issues with making “aliyah.”
More than 200 observant volunteers and professionals, coordinators and organizers from the United States and Israel donated their time to have photos taken that will be available for download as stock images.
The Israeli leader appeared determined to change how the Jewish state is understood; a number of times during the trip, he emphasized the need for Israel to be seen as a country with energy, optimism, success and a strong, even optimal future.
The event followed the Israeli prime minister’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. it was hosted by the Jewish Federation of North America with about 100 leaders from Jewish Federations and other American Jewish organizations in attendance.
It is “a significant step forward in protecting our people,” said Michael Masters, national director and CEO of SCN.
A main challenge for the Jewish people is not how everyone prays, it’s the unaffiliated who are our greatest challenge—the disconnected, the apathetic, the disengaged, young Jewish people totally disinterested in their heritage and Israel, says the deputy mayor of Jerusalem.
Karen Parry, executive director of Hillel of San Diego, said the center will be “a hub for Jewish life and is critical to ensuring that students have a place to gather, connect and learn.”
Their ancestors wandered Central Asia and the Far East for centuries before settling along the borders of Burma and Bangladesh.
The Alliance of Rabbis in the Islamic States worked with the Jewish Agency and the Meromim Foundation to deliver the “Four Species” to Jewish communities in other Muslim countries, including Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Former Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein, also an ex-refusenik, called her “one of the great icons of the struggle for the right to immigrate to Israel from the Soviet Union.”
It’s part of a rejuvenation of Jewish life, particularly in Budapest, that has come about in the last decade after the dark shadow of the Holocaust and then years of Communist rule.
“In almost every tactical situation, the United States has had success, but there has been, in a real sense, a broader strategic failure,” said Michael Masters, director of the Secure Community Network.
