Frankly, says ex-minister, Israel doesn't give a damn about Aliyah

Israelis and their government couldn't care less about fostering Jewish identity abroad and encouraging Jews to move here, despite broad support for programs strengthening Israel-Diaspora relations, former MK Rabbi Michael Melchior asserted this week in Jerusalem.

"Aliyah in this country is something that is only important for happy, ceremonial occasions," Melchior said Wednesday at the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem. "Aliyah is not on the agenda of anybody or any body that is significant for making choices and decision for the priority of this country." His criticism includes the current as well as previous governments and is not tied to partisan politics, he later told Anglo File.

"All the big parties have decided - it's an active decision - that they are willing to sacrifice Zionism on the altar of political power," Melchior said, referring to coalition deals between Zionist and Haredi parties. He added that the Haredim oppose making society more pluralistic and liberalizing conversion laws, thus keeping out thousands of potential immigrants.

The Danish-born Melchior, 55, made the comments at a panel discussion entitled "Is aliyah good for the Jews?" While he garnered applause for his talk from most of the audience, a few onlookers disagreed, pointing out that the state sponsors Birthright Israel, Masa and other organizations dedicated to strengthening Israel-Diaspora relations. Melchior denies the government funds these programs out of genuine concern for the future of the Jewish people.

"I was a minister without portfolio when I started in the government, and I had a bigger budget than the ministry of immigration," the Danish-born Melchior said. "The least significant committee you can be on in the Knesset is the immigration, absorption and Jewish world committee, which only survives because the speaker of the Knesset thought it'd be a shame to publicly say what everyone believes."

This troubling trend can be turned around only if Israelis tried to create a society where Jews would want to move to and if Israel's leaders made an active decision to prioritize immigration, investing serious efforts and budgets in this area, Melchior said.

Some people are indeed involved in "very exciting and I would say even paradigm shifting projects, which could turn this country into something else," he concluded, "but if it doesn't come as a part of the decision-making here, then it's not going to happen and the drift between Israel and the Diaspora is going to widen."

While Melchior, a former minister of social and Diaspora affairs, didn't mention any specific projects, many of the 150-odd people in the audience understood he was referring to Birthright, which has sent about 200,000 Jewish youths on free trips to Israel to strengthen their connection with the country.

Melchior, who was Birthright's founding chairman, said during the Q&A session that the government's decision to become one of the program's major funders "had nothing to do with an ideological paradigm shift of the Israeli government. It was done for all the wrong reasons - I know because I was the cabinet minister who passed that decision and I can tell you what all the ministers thought about it, and why [former Prime Minister Ehud] Barak went for it. It had nothing to do with a concern for Jewish identity in the world, nothing whatsoever."

Birthright first received government funding under Barak in 1999. "His motives weren't primarily because of Zionism," Melchior told Anglo File after the panel. "I don't really want to get into it, but let me just say he did it because of the people who were involved in Birthright and not because of Zionism."