Aliyah is no longer main focus of Jewish Agency - Haaretz

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Thu., February 14, 2008 Adar1 8, 5768

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Aliyah is no longer main focus of Jewish Agency

By Anshel Pfeffer

KIEV - "I no longer know what they want of me," a veteran Jewish Agency emissary (shaliach), who is now serving his third tour of duty in one of the former Soviet countries, complained last week. "They sent me here to bring Jews to Israel, and now the agency chairman comes along and talks to us about the need to work on preserving existing communities. And what about Zionism?"

Yet other emissaries, especially the younger ones, like the new focus. "I understand that our job today is less to bring Jews to Israel and more to bring Israel to Jews," said one.

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The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) spent hundreds of thousands of shekels last week to bring all its staffers in the former Soviet Union to a week-long seminar in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. All the senior JAFI officials also came. Executives answered questions about wages and benefits, and there were social and cultural activities. But a major topic of discussion was the agency's changing mission.

JAFI is an organization under attack. Private groups are bringing thousands of immigrants to Israel, undermining its decades-long monopoly. American donors are demanding wide-ranging changes in its management. Donations are declining. And immigration is also dropping steadily, making it unclear what JAFI's role should actually be.

Just over half of the world's Jews still live outside Israel. Most live in the West, and few are interested in leaving. The rising standard of living in the former Soviet countries makes mass immigration from there unlikely as well.

In his opening remarks to the emissaries, JAFI Chairman Zeev Bielski acknowledged these facts, adding that therefore, the new goal should be to inculcate a connection with Israel among Diaspora Jews - inter alia, by bringing young Jews on trips to Israel.

Not all the emissaries were pleased. Reuven Greenberg, a shaliach in Ukraine, for instance, explained that today, an emissary's work is not the prestigious job it once was. Therefore, "anyone who is here is here for the Zionist enterprise, and we believe that the people of Israel ought to live in the Land of Israel."

But others argued that nowadays, it is difficult to talk to Diaspora Jews about immigrating. Some JAFI youth camps, they said, do not even fly the Israeli flag. "There's a feeling that people are afraid to talk about Israel," admitted Yossi Leibowitz, a veteran emissary responsible for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, who opposes the change of focus.

Bielski said that the agency would continue to view encouraging immigration as its "primary mission," but that a shaliach should also see himself as "an emissary of Jewish identity."

Haim Kaplanikov, head of the JAFI office in Kiev, elaborated. "We want them to immigrate," he said. "But what is important first of all is forging a connection with Jews, then a dialogue in which we present Israeli society to them. If we don't do it this way, these people will be lost of the Jewish people."

In this situation, Jewish education is naturally receiving greater emphasis, at the expense of immigration. Once, about 80 percent of JAFI's resources were devoted to immigration and 20 percent to education. Today, the balance is very different. Alan Hoffman, who heads JAFI's Education Department, noted that in his seven years on the job, the department's budget has more than tripled, from $34 million to this year's $112 million - even though JAFI's total budget has fallen.

Hoffman argued that education is a form of "pre-immigration." In a situation where "there are no longer strong communal institutions here," he said, "it's a way of maintaining a connection between people here and the Jewish people."

Veteran emissaries still remember the days when tens of thousands of immigrants might arrive in a single month, and when it was considered crucial to bring as many as possible as fast as possible, lest the gates close tomorrow. For these emissaries, Hoffman said, it is hard to adjust to the reality of plummeting immigration. "They were raised on negating the Diaspora."

Hoffman argued that "for 60 years, Diaspora Jewry worked via JAFI on nation-building in Israel. But today, the danger is the disappearance [of Diaspora Jewish communities]. The time has come for JAFI to ... move to a position of preserving the Jewish people."

Yet many emissaries still have mixed feelings. "I think about this a lot - whether it's okay that we're creating a center of Jewish culture outside Israel," said Ilana Axelrod, an education shaliach in Belarus whose job includes organizing a major annual cultural event, the Purimspiel in Vitebsk, which celebrates Jewish art as well as the Jewish holiday of Purim.

"And I don't have a full answer. But I know that we can't bring everyone to Israel. And for young people to meet, talk about Purim, come to Vitebsk, meet people from Israel - that's important."

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