One of France’s foremost Jewish leaders, Adam Loss, has called for a close, even if at times difficult, cooperation between Israel and disapora Jewry based on the principles “of Israel’s continued existence and the permanent nature of the diaspora itself.”
Loss, who is the director general of the Fonds Social Juif Unifie (FSJU), the French central welfare fund, and publisher of France’s monthly Jewish review “L’Arche,” stressed in an editorial that diaspora Jewry seems destined to remain a permanent factor in Jewish life even if Jewish immigration to Israel were to steeply increase.
Writing in L’Arche, Loss underlined two factors which, according to him, mark Israel’s future and the Zionist cause: the fact that only 20 percent of world Jewry lives in Israel, and Jewish identification, in the Western democracies, with the countries in which the Jews live.
“The vast majority of diaspora Jews do not feel that they are in exile or that they belong to a marginal group. They are Jews as they want to be, but full American, British or French citizens,” and actively support the State of Israel, Loss wrote. He concluded that the diaspora and Israel “should become used to living together in a creative tension and walk together towards a joint destiny.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
