The Week That Was Friday morning in Jerusalem; a time to complete Shabbat preparations, and reflect on the past week. And as senior leaders - both lay and professional - continue to stream into Israel, a day of rest sounds pretty good. With the upcoming Jewish Agency board meetings next week, the tension is so thick a plastic knife could cut through. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. After the high of multi-young leadership events the past few weeks, including the ROI Summit, the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship and the launch of the latest cohort of the PresenTense Global Fellowship, the Israeli Presidential Conference opened on Tuesday. And what began with such high hopes and expectations in 2008, at least as far as Jewish world programing, has become a disappointment for many. The most … Continue Reading
Heard Around Jerusalem
Here in Jerusalem, the annual summer pilgrimage of both the up and coming and the establishment leadership is in full swing with the opening tonight of the Israel President's Conference. Last week saw both the 6th annual rocking ROI Community Summit and the Nachum Goldman Fellowship convening. The World Jewish Congress, Hebrew University and University of Haifa governing boards recently wound up, and on tap - besides the President's Conference - are the Zionist General Council meetings, the Jewish Agency Assembly and board meetings, and a host of other events. Multiple missions and Birthright buses abound. In short, a typical June in Israel. Last night saw two great events. Hillel Israel held their first Annual Hilleluya Gala in Tel Aviv celebrating the work of their nine campus program (reaching … Continue Reading
Battle for JNF/KKL Leadership Goes Back to Court
from The Jerusalem Post: Battle over JNF leadership going back to court Attorneys for Jewish National Fund/Keren Kaymet Leyisrael chairman Effi Stenzler will file a lawsuit in Petah Tikva District Court on Monday against the parties that signed a deal that would replace Stenzler with former religious affairs minister Shimon Sheetrit. ... The Jerusalem Post obtained an agreement signed on June 2 by representatives of the Artzeinu Reform faction in the World Zionist Organization, Kadima and its allies from the Conservative Movement’s Merkaz Olami, and Mizrachi/Israel Beiteinu, which together comprise a majority in the WZO. Kadima supports the deal because it includes vast powers and financial benefits for its candidate to be co-chairman of JNF, MK Eli Aflalo. Sheetrit agreed to give Aflalo many … Continue Reading
Herzl Day Website Launched
Just in time to mark Herzl Day celebrations (May 15th), the World Zionist Organization has launched a dedicated "Yom Herzl - Herzl Day" website. The site contains downloadable educational and trivia resources in English, Hebrew and Spanish, for the day's celebration. … Continue Reading
Ovadia Yosef: Fires Only Happen Where Shabbat is Desecrated
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of the Shas political party, is at it again with intemperate remarks about Israeli suffering. Last night, in his weekly sermon, Ovadia Yosef claimed that the devastating Carmel fire was a result of insufficient Shabbat observance in the area: “Fires only happen in a place where Shabbat is desecrated,” he said. And today, his mouthpiece, Interior Minister Eli Yishai (of the same ministry responsible for Israel's lack of preparedness to deal with the forest fire) defended Ovadia Yosef's comments. When religious leaders speak like this, is it any wonder a recent poll found 80% of the Israeli public dissatisfied with the government's policies on religion and state and 61% of non-haredi citizens supported the establishment of a Likud-Kadima government … Continue Reading
Doing the Write Thing at the GA
by David Breakstone Any conference involving 3500 people is bound to have some resemblance to a circus, and any good circus has got to have a great sideshow. That’s what Do the Write Thing (DTWT) was this week to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Thirty student journalists were brought together by the Hagshama Division of the Department for Diaspora Activities of the World Zionist Organization and the American Zionist Movement in order that they might be initiated simultaneously into the worlds of professional journalism and the organized Jewish community. Apparently it worked. “DTWT was the equivalent of a splash of ice cold water in the face, coupled with a rooster crowing into a megaphone. It was a double wake-up call, both to the vast opportunity in … Continue Reading
Selling Zionism at the GA
Ideology is out, they warn me, on the way to New Orleans By David Breakstone Every New Yorker knows that LGA stands for LaGuardia Airport. Arriving there early Sunday morning, it appears that, for a day at least, it also stands for Leaving for the General Assembly, the annual gathering of the Jewish Federations of North America, taking place this year in New Orleans. Before boarding my flight, I manage to bump into more than half a dozen Jewish professionals whose paths I've crossed in my years of involvement in Jewish communal life. Dozens more whom I don't know are already talking shop. The GA experience has taken off though the plane is still on the ground. "I hope you know you're not going to be able to sell Zionism to anyone out there," one colleague warns me, aware that I'm traveling … Continue Reading
Duvdevani Puts Haaretz on Defensive
Filed under In the Media, Jewish Philanthropy, lnside Israel, Philanthropy in Israel, The Blog
Senior Jewish world figures continue to complain about misleading statements published last week in Haaretz as they relate to the new strategic plan of the Jewish Agency (JAFI). Last Thursday, JAFI's Board chair, Richie Pearlstone, published an open letter to the editor. Today, Avraham Duvdevani, chair of the World Zionist Organization express his thoughts: 15 Tammuz, 5770 June 27, 2010 Jerusalem Dear Member of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors, Shalom and warm greetings from Jerusalem! The article regarding the Jewish Agency’s new vision published in the Magazine of Friday’s Ha-Aretz Newspaper (June 25, 2010), leaves the erroneous impression that I oppose the Jewish Agency’s new Strategic Plan. For those who saw the article, as well as those who didn’t, this letter to … Continue Reading
The World Zionist Organization: Sinking Fast and No-one Cares
This Is What Jewish Democracy Looks Like by J.J. Goldberg If you really want to get a handle on the troubles dogging Israel’s relationship with the Jewish Diaspora, look no further than the World Zionist Congress, which opened with great fanfare in Jerusalem on June 15 and limped to a whimpering close two days later. You talk about two Jews and three opinions? This brawl involved 550 Jews with 1,100 sharp elbows and 2,000 years’ worth of grudges. An explosion was waiting to happen, and it happened on the final morning, when the delegates voted 3-to-1 to endorse an Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace deal and praise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s settlement freeze. After the vote was tallied, a group of Orthodox and Likud-allied delegates rushed the stage, began singing … Continue Reading
World Zionist Congress: Thoughts from a Delegate
Rabbi Gerald Skolnik writing in The Jewish Week: World Zionist Congress: There Has to be a Better Way I am in Jerusalem, having just attended the 36th World Zionist Congress as a delegate of MERCAZ, the Zionist arm of the Conservative movement. Now that the Congress is, mercifully, over, I can safely say that if one really cares about Israel and loves her for all the right reasons, attending a Zionist Congress is just about the worst prescription you could write for your Zionist health, especially in these precarious times for Zionism around the world. Now throw in the ever-present, just-beneath-the-surface animosity that all too often defines the relationships between the various religious denominations in America, and, of course, the not-always-beneath-the-surface seething animosity that … Continue Reading
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