A new channel of dialogue between Israelis and diaspora Jewry was established here this week with the inauguration of the Ivan J. Novick Institute for Israel-Diaspora Relations, named in honor of Ivan Novick, past president of the Zionist Organization of America and current chairman of the ZOA board.
The Istitute, endowed by Novick’s friends and associates, held its first session, parallel with the ZOA Presidential Leadership Mission currently holding its conference in Jerusalem. The premier session, at the ZOA House in Tel Aviv, focussed on the theme of “The Zionist Imperative.”It was discussed by Prof. Daniel Elazar, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Prof. Emil Fackenheim, professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto and a visiting professor at the Hebrew University.
Fackenheim observed, “If this Institute serves to increase our awareness of even the questions Israel and the diaspora communities are asking of each other, it will have served a vital purpose… Hopefully, through a process of thoughtful participation in Israel and the diaspora, it will have taken us one step further to the answers we seek.”
Novick and Alleck Resnick, current president of the ZOA, urged American Jews to join some kind of Zionist organization to demonstrate their participation in the Zionist movement.
But Novick expressed reservations over the integration of non-Zionists into the Jewish Agency. “We have some concern regarding the motives of those who are not involved in the Zionist world,” he said. He questioned whether non-Zionists, often characterized as the “fund-raisers” are quipped to deal effectively with basic issues such as Zionist education and aliya.
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.
