There can be little doubt that one of the most important issues facing the Jewish people today is the connection between its two branches, those who live in the Jewish state and those who live outside of it.
The recent war in Israel once again underlined the importance of strong ties between Diaspora Jews and the State of Israel for their mutual benefit, while the pestilential corona plague has generated a spike in interest in aliyah.
The venerable Jewish Agency plays a large role in addressing both aliyah and the relationship between the Jewish state and its brethren abroad, and so the upcoming selection of a new chairman for the organization, expected at the end of October, has taken on renewed significance.
As the race goes into the final straight, candidate Danny Danon sat down with The Jerusalem Post to discuss what his priorities would be as chairman, and his perspective on the challenges facing the organization and the Jewish people that it serves.
From the outset, Danon is keen to emphasize his bona fides as someone with great familiarity with the Jewish world who is at home with Diaspora Jews in the US and around the globe, who can get on with Jewish leaders of all types, and who understands the needs, concerns, and desires of the Jewish people outside Israel.
He points to his work as an emissary for the Jewish Agency to the Jewish community in Florida in the early 1990s, where he helped organize rallies against the notorious antisemite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, as well as roles he has had as chairman of World Betar and chairman of World Likud.
Danon also points to his determination to head the Knesset Committee for Immigration and Absorption during his time as an MK in the 18th Knesset, a committee that is not prestigious but has an important role in conducting oversight of the government’s attitude and policies on aliyah and toward Jews around the world.
Above all, Danon says that his time in New York as Israel’s ambassador to the UN gave him a unique opportunity to experience Jewish life in the US, and connect with American Jewish communities and their leaders. In that role, he met with dozens of Jewish communities around the globe during diplomatic missions, claiming to have met with almost every Jewish community in the world during his travels.
Now back in Israel, Danon says that he is “honored” to be under consideration for the role of Jewish Agency chairman, and that despite his previous ambition to head the Likud – following two leadership attempts against Benjamin Netanyahu in 2007 and 2014 – says he would dedicate himself to his full four-year term as chairman if selected for the role.
He is insistent that the Jewish Agency, despite it being a remnant of the Zionist movement’s pre-state past, is still valuable and relevant to the Jewish people today.
“We need a bridge between Jewish communities abroad and Israel, and vice versa,” he says. “We need them to know more about Israel, and us to know more about them.”
Of the strain in the relationship between Israel and its brethren abroad that have emerged in recent years, Danon says that “there is a lot of miscommunication, a lot of misunderstanding,” and that the more both sides are exposed to each other the greater the ability to reduce such misunderstanding.
“The role of the Jewish Agency is to be the bridge, and the chairman should be its ambassador.”
Despite his credentials as someone with strong familiarity with the Jewish world, Danon’s candidacy faces some significant obstacles.
One is that the other national institutions, as they are known – the World Zionist Organization, Keren Kaymeth Le’Yisrael-Jewish National Fund, and Keren Hayesod-United Jewish Appeal – are all led either by right-wing figures in the case of the first two organizations, and in the latter, someone nominated by the right-wing.
The center, left-wing and liberal side of the Zionist map is keen that it hold the leadership of at least one of these four institutions, while the selection committee of the Jewish Agency would appear to be weighted in favor of that political wing.
Danon himself is a born and bred Likudnik with hawkish views on the conflict with the Palestinians.
He dismisses these concerns, noting that the chairmanship of the Jewish Agency was not part of the coalition agreement in the recent World Zionist Congress.
“We shouldn’t do these kinds of calculations when talking about the chairman of the Jewish Agency, we should pick the best candidate, and the previous committee did that with Buji [Isaac Herzog],” he argues. “They took the best candidates and didn’t look at who was leading the JNF or WZO organizations.”
As a right-wing politician who doesn’t support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, how can he get on with the liberal Jewish leadership in US?
Danon answers quickly that he has already proven he can.
“Serving in UN for five years, I worked with all the Jewish leadership, with many federations,” he argued. “I participated in hundreds of events in dozens of cities in the US, and actually supporting the cause of the Jewish Agency, because the federations are the arm of the Jewish Agency in the US.”
One of the pressing challenges that Danon said he hopes to address among Jewish youth in the Diaspora, particularly in the US, is to get them “engaged” with Israel.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re left or right, Reform or Orthodox,” he asserts. “That’s our main problem, and it’s a challenge.”
Indeed, the recent Pew Report on US Jewry found that 51% of American Jews age 18-29 said they have little or no emotional attachment to Israel, although the data also showed far greater connection to Israel among Orthodox Jews compared with their Reform and unaffiliated brethren.
While lauding programs like Birthright and Masa that bring Jewish adults over age 18 to Israel, Danon argues that it is necessary to reach out to high-school-age children to guarantee that an emotional connection is made for them with the Jewish state.
“If I was given $100 million for the Jewish people from a Jewish philanthropist, and was asked where to invest money, I would target it at this age group of 12 to 16-year-olds, to speak to those people, touch them, get them involved, bring them to Israel for a week or semester, or bring Israel to their classroom,” he said. “If you get them at that age and that stage, you secure the future of the Jewish people, you make Israel stronger. Not all Jews will make aliyah, but you want those who stay abroad to be involved in Israel.”
Asked why support for Israel among US Jewish youth is low and apparently declining, Danon said the root of the problem lies in the failure to properly educate the age group he seeks to target.
He was reticent to say who might be responsible for this failure, and refused to ascribe it either to political divergence between Israel and American Jews especially over the conflict with the Palestinians; the fight over religious pluralism in Israel; or to the non-Orthodox denominations whose young members demonstrate especially low levels of affinity to Israel.
On whether Israel needs to be more attentive to the ideas, beliefs and requirements of non-Orthodox Jews, Danon said merely that “we should be open and more inclusive on both sides,” asserting that the majority of Israelis are welcoming and tolerant of all Jews.
Regarding the indefinitely suspended Western Wall agreement of 2016, Danon was non-committal on whether the government should finally implement it, and declined to say explicitly whether he supports it.
“We have to continue the dialogue,” he says. “The agreement wasn’t a bad agreement. We should respect the process done by [former Jewish Agency chairman Natan] Sharansky and [then cabinet secretary Avichai] Mandelblit, listen to the different parties, and the government should take a decision.”
Danon says he believes that those US Jews with a liberal and progressive agenda can still be shown things to love and connect to about Israel.
“There are so many things we can do for tikkun olam and social justice, not only in Israel but worldwide, and the Jewish Agency can be a strong force in getting those people involved, we can give them the platform to do it,” he says.
Turning to the other, and indeed original, core mission of the Jewish Agency – aliyah – Danon says that Zionism today can be fulfilled in different ways.
“We have to realize that it is legitimate to have a full Jewish life outside of Israel,” he says. “The ultimate goal is to come to Israel. Maybe that won’t be you, or your children, it might be your grandchildren. I don’t think we should hide this, but that doesn’t mean we expect all Jews to leave their communities and come to Israel.”
At the same time, he says Israel should not be afraid to talk about aliyah, and of Israel being “the center of Jewish life” in the world.
“If you try and hide the core values of aliyah, of Hebrew language, of the Land of Israel, you won’t be able to achieve the other things you want to achieve, which is Jewish continuity and strong Jewish life. You cant do it without the essence.”