One of the principal aims of the Jewish Agency will always be aliyah to Israel. But how do you bring olim from America or France or England if you don’t first strengthen their identification with the Jewish people? This is our greatest challenge.
We see, for example, with programs like Birthright that if you want to strengthen the Jewish identity of Diaspora Jews, you need Israel. But we also see that if you want to strengthen the Jewish identity of Israelis, you need the Diaspora. What organization is capable of uniting this effort? Where is the organization through which Israel and the Diaspora meet and build projects together?
There is only one organization in the big world of Jewish organizations where the State of Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora are in constant dialogue and working together: the Jewish Agency.
We should speak big and think big about our goals. Our aim should be no less than ensuring that Jewish Zionist education is available to every Jew in the world. It is a difficult task, but it is possible. Not only should Jewish Zionist education be available, it should be desirable – “cool,” as my daughters say.
The Jewish Agency can do it. It should be done through the strength of our bond with the State of Israel. Important decisions should be made together. Important questions that are discussed within the organization should also to be discussed at government meetings and in Knesset committee hearings.
The college campus is one of the most challenging places today for us as a people. It is a place where our young people under constant pressure to distance from their people and their country.
The first question I was asked by a young, talented Jewish student on the very first campus I visited – a question since repeated again and again – was: “Why do we need Israel? Tikkun olam means justice for everybody. So let us work for justice for everybody.”
I told him: “Ask your parents how the world looked when there was no Israel.”
The most important challenge for all of us is to make sure this student at Columbia or that student at Berkeley or a young couple in Sderot or Jews of Venezuela or Kiev all feel themselves empowered by this connection to the Land of Israel, by pride in our history and love of our tradition.
If, in this post-identity world, there are strong, vibrant Jewish families united around Jerusalem and the State of Israel, our lives will be meaningful and we will be able to fulfill the mission for which we are chosen as a people.