Israel Can Do Much to Help Diaspora Jewry, While Spending Little

July 13 2020

Last week, the Israeli government approved a plan put forward by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to strengthen ties with Jewish communities around the world, and to provide them with support. Unfortunately, writes Caroline Glick, the plan is “heavy on platitudes but empty of substance.” Glick suggests some better ways the Jewish state can be of service:

As the Diaspora Ministry’s program points out, particularly in the U.S., only a tiny minority of Jewish children study in Jewish day schools. High tuition prices most Jews out of the system. It isn’t Israel’s job to subsidize Jewish day schools abroad [but] Israel’s Education Ministry could develop curricula and publish textbooks and other educational materials for Jewish students in the Diaspora.

Second, . . . Israel has a surfeit of teachers and no problem training more. It could launch a program to train teachers to teach in Diaspora communities for a period of thee-to-five years. Such a program could include scholarships for teacher-accreditation programs and dedicated training ahead of relocation. Israel can subsidize the teachers’ salaries or partner with philanthropists to finance their work abroad.

Today there are already extraordinary programs in Israel that train young rabbis to serve as community rabbis in Diaspora Jewish communities. The young rabbis and their families move to far-flung communities for five years where they build, organize, and serve the communities. . . . The government should support and expand these programs. By sending young Israeli rabbis abroad, Israel will lower synagogue membership costs—and through them the cost of living Jewish lives. These rabbis and their families will develop strong, lasting grassroots relationships between Israeli Jews and Diaspora Jewry.

Read more at Israel Hayom

More about: Diaspora, Israel and the Diaspora, Jewish community, Jewish education, Rabbis

The Hard Truth about Deradicalization in Gaza

Sept. 13 2024

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.

Read more at European Conservative

More about: Gaza War 2023, World War II