Restructuring Israeli-Diaspora Relations

As noted above, according to the authors of the proposals, the problem that world Jewry is called upon to confront is the problem of declining Jewish commitment and declining interest by diaspora Jews in Israel. One answer to the problem, so the authors insist, is enhancing the partnership between Israel and the Diaspora. But the problem the authors identify is one that involves individual Jews. Neither the Zionists nor the major fundraising organizations are especially sensitive to, or representative of, the Jewish masses. Hence, they are poorly positioned to solve the problem. Solutions can come from agencies, organizations, or institutions that engage, or are capable of engaging, Jews on an individual basis. To put it another way, as long as the purpose of the partnership between Israel and the Diaspora was to raise money or mobilize political support for Israel, political and fund-raising organizations were the logical partners of the government of Israel. These organizations could claim to speak for masses of Jews as long as most Jews accorded them passive acceptance. But if the problem is the commitment of individual Jews to Judaism and to Israel, if the concern of the Jewish world is with Jewish identity and transmitting Jewish tradition, then the present partners are quite inadequate. As I have written elsewhere, Jews, whether they are conscious of doing so or not, increasingly distinguish the public world of Judaism (i.e., the world of politics, fund raising, and ethnic concerns) from the private world of Judaism (i.e., that which is concerned with matters of identity, self realization, and meaning).(5) These proposals purport to resolve questions on the "private" agenda with instruments suitable to the "public" agenda. Yossi Beilin's radical proposal to create a mass organization of world Jews, Beit Yisrael, to replace the present structures is an exception in this regard. That proposal has now disappeared from the public agenda; especially after Beilin's colleague, [Avraham Burg], was chosen leader of the Jewish Agency. Nevertheless, I believe that it represents a starting point for more serious consideration than perhaps even Beilin himself accorded it. I suspect the author doesn't really believe what he seems to be advocating. Does he really mean that "Jews for Jesus" or "African Israelites," who insist they are Jews and offer rather unique approaches to Judaism, should be accorded the opportunity to present their viewpoint? All Burg probably