Leon Dulzin, chairman of the Jewish Agency and World Zionist Executives, called for a “new challenging partnership between Israel and Jewish communities throughout the world.” He defined that partnership as a “unity of commitment” in confronting Israeli-diaspora “common tasks and common agenda” for “the creative survival of the Jewish people.”
Addressing several hundred delegates to the 51st General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations, Dulzin noted that there are difficulties within Israel these days and between Israel and the diaspora, but “we will solve this.” The “reality of Israel is the force that unites Jews around the world and is also the unifying element in Jewish communities in the United States.”
ROLE OF THE JERUSALEM PROGRAM
Dulzin said the common tasks and common agenda in Israeli- diaspora relations is based on the Jerusalem Program which was adopted by the World Zionist Congress in 1968. The five-point program states that the aims of Zionism are:
“The unity of the Jewish people and the centrality of Israel in Jewish life”; “The ingathering of the Jewish people in its historic homeland, Eretz Israel, through aliya from all countries”; “The strengthening of the State of Israel which is based on the prophetic vision of justice and peace”; “The preservation of the identity of the Jewish people through the fostering of Jewish and Hebrew education and of Jewish spiritual and cultural values”; and “The protection of Jewish rights everywhere.”
Dulzin said that in line with this program, “aliya and its promotion is a top priority and should be on the agenda of every Jewish community organization.” Another top priority, he said, is Jewish education, formal and informal.
Focusing on aliya, Dulzin said that a strong Israel “requires more Jews. Our economy needs the skills of Jews from the Western world.” In addition aliya is not only important for Israel “but also for diaspora communities. It strengthens links to Israel and Israel is linked to the diaspora with bonds of family.”
CITES SOME COMMON TASKS
Among the common tasks facing Israel and the diaspora, Dulzin cited the need to rescue Jews in distress in the Soviet Union and Ethiopia. He pledged that Israel “will bring all Ethiopian Jews to Israel.”
Regarding the “tragic situation” of Jews in the USSR, he warned that “if neshira (dropout) continues to grow it will hurt Jewish emigration.” He rejected the idea that Soviet Jews are refugees. “They have a place to go, and that place is Israel,” he declared. “The road from the Soviet Union should be to Jerusalem and not to New York or Paris or London.”
Regarding Jewish education, Dulzin said the “a major task is to assure that Jews remain Jews. We are losing our people to assimilation and intermarriage. In the old days it was hard to be a Jew but Jews remained Jews. Today it is easier to be a Jew but it is also easier to disappear as a Jew into the general scene. I have my own definition of Who is a Jew. A Jew is one who helps his children remain a Jew.”
He stressed repeatedly that it is imperative “to maintain the unity of the Jewish people despite differences we may have.” He noted that while many things divide us what “unites us is Israel.” Dulzin did not spell out what differences he had in mind, but hinted that the differences were over the war in Lebanon.
He indicated this when he noted that Israel is deeply involved in sorting out the tragedy of the women and children who were killed in the refugee camps in west Beirut. He said that after the Yom Kippur War Israelis called for a commission of inquiry to investigate the lack of preparedness. “They were investigating themselves,” he said. “Now the investigation is about other people.”
Citing his dream for Israel’s future, Dulzin said he wants an Israel that exemplifies morality and Jewish principles. “We do not want to become another Sparta and be known for our military strength,” he declared.
LOUP CASTIGATES THE MEDIA
Robert Loup, general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, who also addressed the forum which dealt with Israel-diaspora relations, castigated the media for its “wild distortions” of the war in Lebanon, with its highly exaggerated and unconfirmed stories about the numbers of people who were killed or made homeless.
He charged that the media was guilty of “bigotry and even anti-Semitism” in its use of “code words such as ‘genocide’, ‘holocaust’, and ‘Nazis’ to describe Israel’s action in Lebanon.” Loup said that the media “missed the real story — the real sacrifice Israeli soldiers made not to harm civilians in Lebanon.”
The UJA leader pointed to the sharp contrast between the media coverage of the Sabra and Shatila camps massacres and the media insensitivity to the deaths of Jews at the hands of terrorists. Citing by name major newspapers, wire services, TV networks and columnists in this country which produced reams of copy about the massacres but paid scant, if any, attention to Jewish victims around the world, Loup declared:
“Where was the media when a Jewish woman was killed in Antwerp, an Israeli diplomat murdered in Paris, and an Israeli Ambassador wounded in London? Does any President have on his desk a photo of Stefano Tasch, the two-year-old child who was killed in Rome when the synagogue was bombed?”
This last was an apparent reference to the photo President Reagan allegedly kept on his desk of the Lebanese child who was described in the caption as armless but which UPI, which distributed the photo worldwide later conceded had been mislabled. Medical reports showed that the infant suffered a broken arm. The photo was used to symbolize the suffering of the Lebanese people during the war.
Loup also stressed the need for unity between American Jewry and Israel. He said that this unity was being manifested despite questions and concerns over Israel’s policies. “I am gratified by the willingness of our people to give to UJA’s Israel’s special fund and the 1983 general campaign,” he said. “If we don’t raise money, won’t Israelis also feel that we don’t understand them?”
PLIGHT OF ETHIOPIAN JEWS
Another speaker at the forum was Simcha Destel, an Ethiopian Jew. He told the audience that in Ethiopia today “it is very hard to live as a Jew. Jewish schools are closed by the order of the government. Teaching Hebrew is prohibited by the government. Jews are not allowed to meet together even in small groups of three. There is no communications between
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.
