“Israel doesn’t only belong to Israelis, Israel belongs to the entire Jewish world,” Sylvan Adams, who was recently appointed president of the Israeli chapter at the World Jewish Congress, told JNS on Thursday.
In this new role, Adams will work to strengthen ties between Jewish communities worldwide and the State of Israel. He will also work to bolster diplomatic support for the country.
“It was a natural transition for me. When I moved to Israel in 2015, the first week, I printed cards with my new title as self-appointed ambassador at large for Israel. My idea was to promote the Israel that I know and love, so misunderstood and poorly reported,” Adams said.
“People around the world do not understand the real situation and that we are a benevolent, pluralistic, tolerant, democratic nation. They see the conflict, they see protests, and lately since Oct. 7, they see images of war, but this isn’t our full story,” he continued.
“We are at war at the moment, but it’s not who we are, it does not define us. Our enemies define themselves by their hate for us. They are a group of terrorists who want to overthrow the entire Western world starting with Israel,” he added.
Over the last decade, Adams has served as an unofficial goodwill ambassador for Israel around the globe.
In the aftermath of the Hamas-led onslaught on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Adams donated $100 million to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva to strengthen the south. He also visited Gaza border communities, where he announced investments to build cycling and sports infrastructure in the region.
As owner of the Israel-Premier Tech UCI professional cycling team, Adams also organized a mass ride to commemorate victims of the Oct. 7 attacks and to call for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Adams told JNS he now has a mandate from WJC President Ronald Lauder to try to bring Israel and the Diaspora closer together and to create better communication and understanding between Jews worldwide.
“For me, the two things that interest me most concerning the Diaspora are Jewish identity and Jewish continuity. Education is the bridge between these two things,” he said.
“Unless Jews have a reason to embrace the beautiful story of the 3,500-year journey of the Jewish people, unless they learn where they come from, they cannot love what they don’t know. Unfortunately, we are losing a lot of young Jews because they don’t know who they are and don’t take pride in their identity,” he added.
Concerning the explosion of antisemitism that followed Oct. 7, Adams said that this merely revealed latent Jew-hatred that is part of the $1 trillion campaign funded mainly by Qatar, Iran and more recently China.
“Qatar has been at this for 20 years. The reason the professors at the universities are so hostile to Israel and are preaching an antisemitic philosophy in their courses is because they were planted there many years ago and we need to wake up,” Adams said.
“We have to equip everyone to fight antisemitism, especially young people, the youngsters who feel it on campuses. Our youth needs to take the lead in helping to eradicate this ugly phenomenon,” he added.
In his conversation with JNS, Adams praised the American people for voting for President Donald Trump. “The change between the previous administration and the current one on the issues of antisemitism, support for Israel and the return of our hostages has been enormous. We have the best friend we ever had in the White House in Donald Trump,” he said.
“Trump has taken on hostile forces on campuses, and he is threatening to eliminate all federal funding to any school that allows these types of unacceptable antisemitic behavior,” he added.
The Trump administration announced on Friday that it canceled about $400 million worth of contracts and grants to Columbia University, citing the school’s inaction in the face of Jew-hatred on campus.
“Every time members of the Biden administration attacked Israel for not supplying enough aid to Gaza, the leadership of Hamas was having a party, and it made them delay the release of the hostages because they felt more confident that a wedge was created between the U.S. and Israel. As such, there was no urgency to negotiate in good faith,” Adams said.
“They did not do so until [U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East] Steve Witkoff joined [President Joe] Biden’s negotiators and until Trump started saying there would be hell to pay if the hostages weren’t returned,” he continued.
Adams said he does not intend to stop Israel-Premier Tech’s activities, but rather bring the team under the umbrella of the WJC to give it greater visibility in the Jewish world.
“The team is the team of the Jewish people; we carry the name Israel but when we go to Jewish communities, we are embraced. We just went to Paris, people came out to the race and held Israeli flags,” he said.
Adams, a son of Holocaust survivors who grew up in Quebec City in a Zionist household, concluded, “It is kind of fulfillment for my family journey to now have this official capacity as president of WJC Israel. I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work.”