A warning to Israel youth against ignoring the Jews outside of Israel “lest they disappear as a community, an irreparable loss to Israel,” was voiced by Dr. Nahum Goldmann in an address to Hebrew University students yesterday.
The world Zionist leader said that because of “wealth, comforts and good conditions” in America, American Jewish youth find they have nothing specific to fight for or against as Jews and Jewish identification was therefore fading. Nothing but a living contact with Israel, he said, could help the situation.
He added that if Israel wished to influence Jews in other countries, it must also take them into account, study and understand them. Politically, Israel will always need world Jewry, he said, because no state in the modern world can be entirely independent and Israel will be able to resist Arab pressures only if backed by the Jewish people.
Dr. Goldmann urged young Israelis to study Jewish life in countries outside of Israel so that they will have some understanding of such Jews for the time when the Israel-born generation takes over the leadership from the present generation which has first hand knowledge of Jewish life abroad.
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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.
