Project Heads: Shmuel Rosner and John Ruskay
Contributors: Noah Slepkov, Dov Maimon,
Dan Feferman, Uzi Rebhun, Adar Schieber
Editors: Barry Geltman and Rami Tal
Israeli resources allocated to the Diaspora should be channeled toward helping communities in distress or crisis. Communities capable of marshaling their own resources should remain responsible for their own affairs.
Diaspora Jewry should be accorded space for meaningful and diverse cultural expression in the Israeli arena. It is the Israeli government’s duty to remove obstacles to creating such a space (in this regard the government would do well, as a first step toward rebuilding trust, to unfreeze the agreed-upon Kotel arrangement, and implement it).
Resources should be directed to reinforcing projects that promote Israeli-Jewish culture – a culture that generates impact, provides inspiration, and fosters Israeli-Diaspora connections. Cultural activity of this kind should be goal-oriented, and its impact should be measured via professional follow-up analysis and assessment instruments.
Israel and its institutions have an obligation to educate the younger generation of Israelis to understand their responsibility for the fate of all Jews, whoever and wherever they may be, and the meaning of this responsibility – including the duty to take into consideration the needs of non-Israeli Jews.
Israel should regularly take measures designed to show solidarity with Diaspora Jewry and the recognition of its importance. Such measures might include naming streets for important Diaspora leaders, regular symbolic participation of dignitaries in major Israeli public ceremonies (for example, lighting the Memorial Day torches), and more.
