On his way to breakfast at a beach-front hotel in Tel Aviv, Yehiel Leket, acting chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is approached by a stranger.
The man introduces himself as a member of the Labor Party Central Committee, reminds Leket where they last met and mentions that he has always rooted for him. Leket, somewhat ill-at-ease, mumbles quietly, “Then maybe you will vote for me.”
Leket is one of two candidates who have emerged so far to head the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization. The Labor Party Central Committee is scheduled to vote between him and Labor Knesset member Avraham Burg on Feb.16.
For this vote take place, however, the Jewish Agency board of governors’ “advice and consent” committee, representing the Diaspora fund-raising component of the Jewish Agency’s Diaspora-Zionist partnership, must approve both or at least one of the candidates.
After interviewing both candidates last month in New York, the committee postponed making a decision.
The board of governors is scheduled to meet Feb. 14. Observers believe there is a strong possibility that the committee may avoid endorsing either candidate and postpone the election process until the summer. In that case, Leket will remain acting chairman.
The vote is being closely watched because it comes at a defining juncture for the Jewish Agency and WZO.
The WZO, founded to establish a Jewish state, approaches its centennial with its continued existence in question. Few members of the younger generations in either Israel or the Diaspora have been attracted to an international Jewish organization predicated on political Zionism and divided along Israeli party lines.
At the same time, the Jewish Agency, having resettled more than half-a-million Jews from the former Soviet Union in the past few years, faces the prospect of continuing cuts in its $500 million budget.
In a wide-ranging interview on the eve of what may be decisive elections, Leket discussed some of the changes that he believes the agency must undergo. This includes the very process of electing the chairman.
“The partnership between political Zionism and Jewish philanthropy, as it is personified in the Jewish Agency, is anachronistic”, said Leket.
“This framework was good in the past, but things have changed. The State of Israel exists, and our relations with the Diaspora have developed and expanded. The agency does not encompass all these changes and developments, and it ought to”, he said.
“The partnership between Israel and the Diaspora goes beyond politics and it’s vital that the Jewish Agency reflects the whole complexity of this partnership”, he said.
Leket, 53, is stocky, affable and soft-spoken. As the encounter with the potential voter made clear, Leket admits he has difficulty promoting himself. He says he is more comfortable fighting for his plans and ideas than for himself.
He says that when he started at the Jewish Agency in 1975, as the head of the aliyah mission in North America, he never dreamed of becoming the agency’s chairman.
Over the years, however, he climbed through the ranks, until he reached his last post as head of the Department of Youth Aliyad, a title he still holds.
Last year, when Chairman Simcha Dinitz was indicted for aggravated fraud and abuse of public trust related to the alleged abuse of agency credit cards, Leket was named acting chairman.
His appointment was met with some opposition from some Diaspora leaders.
In the interview, Leket identified several stages in the relations between Israel and the world Jewish community.
“First we looked at the Diaspora as the source of aliyah, which Israel needed for sheer survival. Of course it was presented then as crucial for the survival of the Jews, not just of Israel.
“The next stage was the negation of the Diaspora. We refused to grant legitimacy to Jewish life outside Israel. Aliyah was the only way for Diaspora Jews to remain Jewish. But not all Jews abroad adhered to our vision, and with time we came to recognize that the Diaspora is a fact, and that we must face reality”.
Leket continued: “Instead of aliyah, we then worked to establish Israel as central to Jewish life abroad.
“Following this came the full recognition of the significance of the Diaspora, and the perception of two Jewish entities-`Jerusalem and Babylon’- interdependent and treating each other as equal, yet different partners in the task of preserving Jewish continuity.
“This was until recently”, he said, “but now we are faced with a new phase: Jewish continuity abroad, and Jewish identity in Israel”.
Another Labor Party member comes over to the table to greet Leket. Leket does not ask him for his vote, and wonders aloud whether there is some seminar of Central Committee members taking place.
“I’ve been removed from party politics for so long, I don’t even recognize the faces anymore”, he confided. “This election campaign has been a learning experience for me. There are so many new young people in the party”.
Leket said he thinks it is a close race between him and Burg, but he believes he can win it.
“In the Diaspora there is deep concern over intermarriage and assimilation. And here we have a new generation that believes that Israel is only the state of its citizens, not of the entire Jewish people. “Put these two together, and the whole question of Jewish continuity has once more come to haunt us. This is the main reason for the dismissive attitude toward the Jewish Agency, in Israel and abroad. “And this is precisely what the agency must tackle. We already have the framework of a partnership between Israel and the Diaspora. Now we must fill it with new content and make it relevant. We must give new and concrete meanings to this partnership, as our Jewish existence depends on it”, he said.
Leket said he does not believe in instant revolution. He dismisses it as a grand display of fireworks, which tends to get wide media exposure, but achieves very little in the end.
Although he does not mention Burg, there is a hint of criticism of his rival in his words. Leket believes in change, but the way to achieve it is through a “quiet revolution”, which he believes is “much more suitable for a partnership”.
Leket’s quiet revolution comes in stages. A graduate of the Hebrew University with a degree in philosophy, his first stage is thinking. This is followed by careful planning.
“And then comes a most critical step-building a consensus”, he said.
“You must reach a consensus in order to succeed. Once there is a consensus, you can start implementing your plans, but you must remain flexible, and continuously examine your plans against the results, and be prepared to make alterations as you go along.
“True, this way you gain less headlines, but in the end you achieve much more”, he said.
Leket identified three immediate goals for the renewed Jewish Agency: aliyah, Jewish education and development of the peripheries in Israel, namely the Negev and the Galilee.
In a brochure produced for the Labor Party Central Committee meeting, he outlined an ambitious seven-point plan.
Yet he is well aware that the Central Committee may cast its cote less on the basis of the plan, and more along political loyalties. Leket, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s man, is considered to belong to the old guard of the Labor Party.
In his grey jacket and open-neck shirt he even dresses like an old “Mapainik”- after the Labor Party’s original name.
Burg, on the other hand, is a leading member of Labor’s new guard, who are believed to owe their allegiance first and foremost to their own tight-knit group, and then to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
If not elected to the post by the Central Committee, Leket will continue in his job as head of the Department of Youth Aliyah. “There is still a lot to do there”, he said. “And I’ll continue to work quietly, as I have been doing all along, toward he changes I believe the Jewish Agency must undergo”.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
