from Israel Hayom:

A great miracle happened there

We are on the campus of Warwick University, a little over an hour from London…

And yet, against all expectations, Limmud was conceived in England, not Brooklyn or Jerusalem. Every year it grows and branches out to all corners of the Jewish world, and even includes an Israeli component, which is why I was there…

They do not really need us. Of course, they care about Israel. Some more, and some less so. They are certainly not indifferent to what goes on here. But beyond that, they get along very well without us. For a long time Israel has been telling itself all kinds of stories. We Israelis are dying to have world Jewry need us like they need air to breathe. We wanted to think that at least from the point of view of Judaism, we are the center and they are backwater provincials who cannot pronounce the words. But as our sages say, it isn’t so!

The truth is we do not get Anglo-Saxon Jews or have a clue as to what their world is like. We mainly do not have a clue as to how independent and proud they are in their Judaism. For instance, I took part in a panel entitled “Religion and State in Israel,” that focused on the exclusion of women and increasing Haredi [ultra-Orthodox] claims to public space. Seeing the looks on the faces of the audience, which ranged from bemused concern to total ridicule, it seemed to me that in their view, we Israelis are the backward ones.