Avraham Burg, a leader of the Peace Now movement in Israel who was recently appointed advisor on diaspora affairs to Premier Shimon Peres, told a group of American Jewish leaders yesterday that the head of Israel’s government should assume the leadership for world Jewry.
Addressing Jewish leaders for the first time in his new capacity, Burg said it is time for someone to set “the Jewish agenda for the Jewish people.” He said this task was best suited for the Premier. Burg’s remark was made in one of the calmer moments of an often vehement 90-minute exchange of views with 40 invited Jewish leaders in the headquarters of the World Jewish Congress-American Section.
“How do I make the State of Israel a fact in their life in the same way that it is a fact in your life?” he asked, referring to Jews living outside Israel. “It is time to rethink our priorities. Project Renewal will take a top place,” as will Jewish education in the effort to combat assimilation, “the silent Holocaust.”
Burg, 30, who was wounded in a grenade attack against Peace Now demonstrators in February 1983 that took the life of Emil Grunzweig, talked about the problem of accomodating Judaism in the formulation of Israel’s policies.
“I’d love the Prime Minister to be a rabbi,” said Burg, who wears a yarmulke and is religious. “There are issues which touch both subjects — politics and Yiddishkeit,” he said. “How do you make territorial compromise the way the Labor Party wants to if it is a Jewish territory?” asked Burg, speaking of the West Bank.
Several in the audience asked him about his affiliation with Israel’s peace movement. “As for Peace Now,” said Burg, “that’s my religion, that’s what I want.” His activism “is not the issue,” Burg maintained. “I’m not the Israeli government. I represent the Prime Minister.”
Burg, who has never lived away from Israel, said that what has been called his inexperience with the diaspora can be overcome.
INVITATION FOR DIASPORA JEWRY INVOLVEMENT
He said he wanted to extend “an open invitation for involvement” to diaspora Jewry. “What you want to do in the State of Israel, come and tell me,” he said. If it is something “that is not beyond the very fabric of Israeli society, you are welcome to try to bring it about.”
“I believe there is a diaspora with which we can build a relationship, something beyond the dollar,” Burg said, shortly after opening his comments with a defense of his credentials for his new post.
Burg, who is the son of Religious Affairs Minister Yosef Burg, the leader of the National Religious Party, listened to comments and fielded questions from a broad spectrum of American Jewish opinion ranging from Herut on the right to Americans for Progressive Israel on the left.
Rabbi Joseph Karasick, chairman of the WJC Executive Committee, in calling the meeting to an end, offered his assessment of Burg’s candid encounter with American Jewish leaders. “Avraham went in like a lamb and went out like a lion,” he said.
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.
