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World Jewish News
Jerusalem & Babylon / Lieberman the Diaspora czar
22.03.2009
Next week, Israel will have a new Diaspora affairs minister. And it almost certainly won't be one who also has a more senior portfolio, like Yitzhak Herzog, whose day job was at the social affairs ministry and who spoke at Jewish Agency events in his spare time.
After Benjamin Netanyahu finishes selling his cabinet by fire-sale to his coalition partners, he will have to find jobs for all the minister-wannabes in his own Likud party, if he doesn't want to have a full-scale rebellion on his hands. One of the new Likud ministers will have to make do with the Diaspora, the least popular of all the ministerial briefs, and for good reason: International Jewry doesn't have a vote in Israel.
That won't be the only reason the new minister will be reluctant to assume his (or her) post. This is probably the worst possible time to oversee Israel's relationship with Jews abroad. Youth identification with Israel is at an all-time low, and anti-Semitism is rampant. Causes include Israel's misdeeds in Gaza; the global recession and Bernard Madoff's swindle, which ravaged the once proud network of Jewish mega-organizations. The main organ connecting Israel with the communities of the world, the Jewish Agency, is a shadow of its former self, searching for a new identity as its best employees desert in droves and lacking a serious candidate for the once-coveted position of chairman.
There's one more cloud lurking on the horizon: The new minister won't be the government's real Diaspora czar anyway. That will be the new foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.
Lieberman is one of the few Israeli politicians who is at all aware that Jews exist outside the country's borders. That is, he doesn't see Diaspora Jewry solely as a source of invitations to swanky events and campaign donations (though, if the interminable investigations into his business affairs are anything to go by, he is certainly aware of the financial benefits).
Yisrael Beiteinu was the only party that had a significant plan for Israel-Diaspora relations in its campaign platform. It called for "a dramatic change in the government's attitude toward Diaspora Jewry. That means allocating resources and budgets on a much larger scale and reassessing Israel's relationship with various immigration and absorption organizations, chief among them the Jewish Agency."
The manifesto, which is basically a distillation of Lieberman's personal beliefs and policies, raised the threat of assimilation and the "anti-Zionist elements overtaking Jewish organizations and institutes, especially the Jewish Agency and federations. The result is that instead of encouraging aliya, these elements are developing and perpetuating the existence of Jewish communities in exile." (Interestingly, the manifesto uses the pejorative term golah - exile - rather than the more neutral tefutsot - diaspora.)
The party also dictates the balance between Israel and overseas Jewish communities - "Israel must restore its leadership and centrality in the lives of the Jewish communities around the world, become a consolidating factor and set the tone." Organizations that encourage aliyah must receive priority and larger budgets. Furthermore, "Israel cannot leave work with Jewish communities to local organizations. It must be active itself, and all the rest should play only a supporting role."
Nothing there about consultation or partnership.
These aren't mere election promises. Yisrael Beiteinu couldn't have expected to receive even one more vote by committing the government to such a muscular set of policies regarding the Diaspora, certainly not by pledging more money to promote immigration during an economic slump.
A close confidante of Lieberman said this week that he certainly plans to harness Foreign Ministry resources to place Israel at the head of the Jewish world. One indication of how he intends to handle his new post is how, while strategic affairs minister, he insisted he have control of Nativ, the government agency that historically maintained Israel's clandestine relationship with Soviet Jewry.
Under his aegis, the under-funded agency once slated for dismantlement saw its budget doubled, and Lieberman picked a dynamic new leader, Naomi Ben-Ami, to reenergize its activities throughout the former Soviet Union.
Lieberman also led Nativ to expand its activities to Russian-speaking Jewish communities in Germany, causing diplomatic tension with Berlin and an outcry by the local Jewish leadership, which was not consulted. A similar expansion into the United States and Canada was foiled by the powerful Jewish federations in North America.
Now with the entire foreign service at his disposal, Lieberman's remit is worldwide. The manifesto makes clear that he has little use for the Jewish Agency and its tradition of partnership and compromise with the Diaspora. Tellingly, his deputy at the Foreign Ministry will be Yisrael Beiteinu MK and former Washington Ambassador Danny Ayalon. Until a few months ago, Ayalon was president of Nefesh B'Nefesh, the independent Aliyah organization that has all but usurped the Jewish Agency's historical role of promoting North American immigration.
Jewish leaders who previously shunned Lieberman for his strident political views will now have to face him, not just as Israel's premier representative to foreign governments, but also as the man who believes their duty is to Make Aliyah, Support Israel and Shut Up.
Источник: HAARETZ.COM
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