Government Is Alienating Diaspora Jews, Livni Says

“We need to get into dialogue that isn’t just telling Diaspora Jews to make aliya and support whatever the Israeli government does. It has to be much deeper. We have to work on our common bond,” said opposition leader set to tour North America addressing conversion, civil marriage, peace process, deterioration of Israel’s image internationally.

Livni to ‘Post:’ Gov’t is alienating Diaspora Jews
Opposition leader to tour N. America addressing conversion, civil marriage, peace process, deterioration of Israel’s image internationally.
By GIL HOFFMAN
   
Opposition leader to tour N. America addressing conversion, civil marriage, peace process, deterioration of Israel’s image internationally.
 
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has taken steps that have expedited the reportedly growing rift between Israel and liberal Diaspora Jews, opposition leader Tzipi Livni said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post and an opinion piece she wrote for Wednesday’s newspaper.

In an effort to mend the purported rift, Livni will soon embark on a North American tour to meet with college students, rabbis from all religious streams and American and Canadian Jewish leaders. The highlight of her visit is expected to be a town hall meeting with students at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

“The main idea of the trip is to open a dialogue with the Jewish Diaspora,” Livni said. “It’s been important to me for a long time, but it intensified over the past few months with the conversion controversy. It reinforced my belief that we cannot continue to deal only with ourselves when our efforts to define what it means for Israel to be the Jewish homeland and a democracy affect Jews all around the world.”

Livni said the conversion issue was not the only way the current government was alienating Diaspora Jewry. She also cited the lack of civil marriage, the lagging peace process and the deterioration of Israel’s image internationally.

“The Likud is supposed to be a liberal party, but it has sold out to the haredim on key issues,” she said. “Advancing the peace process is an Israeli interest and a Jewish one. It could help young people connect more at a time when Israel’s problematic image hurts their identity.”

Problems with Jewish identity were something that young Diaspora and Israeli Jews had in common, she said. Young, non-Orthodox Israelis needed more to unite them than Hebrew language and army service.

“We need to get into dialogue that isn’t just telling Diaspora Jews to make aliya and support whatever the Israeli government does,” she said. “It has to be much deeper. We have to work on our common bond.”

As opposition leader, Livni said she will learn more about issues important to Diaspora Jews so she could be ready to deal with them if she gets elected. She said she would also continue to take Diaspora Jewry’s side against the government on issues like conversion.

When asked what she would do to improve Israeli- Diaspora if she were prime minister, she praised the MASA and Taglit-Birthright Israel programs and said there should be more dialogue with American Jewish philanthropists about mutual goals for educating young Jews in Israel and around the world.

“The contribution of Diaspora Jews is not just money,” she said. “We must take their views into account on key issues when we make key decisions about Israel’s future.”

Comments

[IH]

Ho hum. She is as tone-deaf as the rest, but is desperately looking for some leverage to make herself (and Kadima) relevant.

If nothing else, it puts her in line to replace Sharansky at the Sochnut someday.

[SJ]

Maybe explaining the extent Israel's revival was foretold in the Old Testament?

[who knows]

The more Haredi extremists define Israel, the more the rest of the Jews will be estranged from the country.

Israel has to take off the gloves and deal with 2 main problems - Haredi and Arab Israeli. If it postpone it more the result could be terrible to imagine.

[mike kane]

Tzipi Livni is very smart--oh do i wish she was in charge - all this crap and corruption would be gone

[justayid]

Kadima is only irrelevant if Bibi manages a peace deal.

Much as I admire Tzipi, I would take that trade-off.

[Adam Neira]

One of the Messianic imperatives is to bring all the Jews to the Holy Land. What this actually means is that the area will be safe, secure and prosperous. Moshiach would be remiss if he was to invite people to a place that wasn't safe. Such a government structure in the Holy Land however does not preclude Jews living in other nations of the world. The Messianic Kingdom will be based in the Holy Land, but its sovereignty will extend to all parts of the world. An isolated, crusader state with hermetically sealed borders is not the divinely mandated model G-d has in mind. However issues of sovereignty, control and management in the Holy Land have to be negotiated. This is why it is vital that the current State of Israel's leaders make the correct decisions regarding their own citizens and those of the Diaspora. Thus Tzipi Livni's comments have resonance. The arc of concern must be very wide and all encompassing.

[Radical Feminist]

If American Jews voted in Israel, Kadima would be in power and Livni would be Prime Minister. Then, perhaps, all this mischief making from the extremist groups might not be such a problem.
What Israel needs is actual legal changes to its policies (such as a strong separation of church and state).

[Mr. Apikoros]

With that bit of philosophical dancing in your last comment, Adam, you should try out for "Dancing with the Stars."

[Friar Yid]

“We need to get into dialogue that isn’t just telling Diaspora Jews to make aliya and support whatever the Israeli government does,” she said. “It has to be much deeper. We have to work on our common bond.”

Well, at least she acts like she understands some of the issues at play.

I'm kind of conflicted here. On the one hand we've had quite a few PMs who have been content to talk the talk and then not walk the walk. On the other hand there have also been plenty who haven't even bothered to play the rhetorical game of pretending to understand the Diaspora community. Fingers crossed Livni actually means what she says-- and may at some point be in a position to do something about implementing it.

[Adam Neira]

To Mr.A...

If I was marooned on a desert island for life and could only choose five play activities, one of them would be dancing to techno. (Many moons ago in Dec.1991 I stated that if scientists one day sent out a satellite into deep space to search the origins of the universe they would hear a sound, and that sound would be techno. You could say I like it.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7840201/Music-of-the-sun-recorded-by-scientists.html