Publications

The Triangular Relationship of Jerusalem Washington North American Jewry

INTRODUCTION
By Stuart E. Eizenstat
2009 has seen great challenges facing the Jewish People and the Jewish
future. In the Diaspora, there is rampant disaffiliation, with increased
intermarriage rates, with low rates of conversion by the non-Jewish spouse,
and low birth rates. Jewish assimilation into the mainstream of American life
is a challenge to Jewish identity. Among many young Jews, ties to Israel are
tenuous.
The internal non-Jewish, American landscape is also changing, with the
old elites, strongly supportive of Israel, giving way to a new generation of
leaders from a more diverse ethnic and racial background. Our largest
state, California, already has a non-white majority, and by mid-century,
that will be true for the United States as a whole. The growing Hispanic and
Asian populations are not per se antagonistic to Israel, but they have little
connection to the Jewish State.
The Diaspora-Israel relationship is especially challenged by the fact that
Diaspora Jews tend to be politically liberal, while the Israeli public and
government, facing years of bombs from Hamas and the lack of a strong
Palestinian peace partner, has become more conservative.
The U.S.-Israel relationship is also at an important point, and this is at the
center of the Glen Cove brainstorming discussions, the first such gathering of
my tenure as chair of the JPPPI. I believe strongly that President Obama and
his entire leadership team is as strongly pro-Israel as any of its predecessors,
although public opinion polls in Israel seem to indicate an inaccurate doubt
about this. But the Obama Administration sees the need to strengthen ties to
the moderate Islamic world, and building a moderate coalition to confront
Iran, as being a central foreign policy goal, and believes that achieving
peace between Israel and the Palestinians is a seminal part of the puzzle to
achieve this goal.
There is no support in the Obama Administration for Israel expanding
settlements further into the West Bank, a key feature supported by important
elements of the Israeli government, and little such support among the vast
majority of American and Diaspora Jews.
JPPPI has held several conferences in the United States, at the Wye
Plantation, and in Israel, including the Conference in May 2008, under the
auspices of President Shimon Peres coinciding with Israel's 60th anniversary
as a nation. JPPPI has also developed a number of important papers since
its formation in 2003.

The seminal papers in this publication are all with the theme of strengthening
the triangular relationship of Jerusalem, Washington, and North American
Jewry. I would like to see it broadened to include the entire Diaspora,
particularly European Jewry, which faces special challenges with the
growth of the Muslim population on the Continent, and this will be one of
the main subjects of JPPPI's 2010 conference.
Avinoam Bar-Yosef, the founding director of JPPPI, stresses in his paper,
"2009-Change of Government in the USA and in Israel: Are We Entering
a New Era with Consequences that Could Affect the Future of the
Jewish People?", the dilemma facing American Jewry with the different
perspectives on key issues-such as settlements, and the priority to be
given the Israeli-Palestinian conflict compared to the Iranian threat-by the
new governments in the U.S. and Israel, with a conservative government in
Jerusalem and liberal one in Washington. Bar-Yosef stresses the challenges
in maintaining traditional support among American Jews, with a younger
generation removed from the Holocaust and the events surrounding Israel's
early decades, and is increasingly focused its American identity.
Avi Gil's piece in this publication, "Developments in the Geopolitical Arena
and their Possible Implications for Israel and the Jewish People", explores
the challenges posed by Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how
they impact on Israel, the United States, and Diaspora Jews, particularly
in America. He perceptively examines how the current economic crisis
impacts on the standing of the U.S., Israel's major strategic partner, and how
the new Administration is dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, Iraq, the
growing threat from the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He emphasizes how Iran's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, dramatized
by the recent revelations by President Obama of a secret nuclear facility
run by the Revolutionary Guards, can impact on the entire Middle East, and
the choices it imposes on Israel and the United States.
Importantly, Avi Gil illuminates what he considers significant gaps between
the Obama and Netanyahu governments on key issues, and the geopolitical
implications.
"Arevut, Partnership and Responsibility" by Meir Kraus, Yehudah Mirsky, Dov
Maimon and Yogev Karasenty, provides a set of principles which will guide
JPPPI in its task, commissioned by the government of Israel and the Jewish
Agency, to redefine the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. They
identify the most significant challenge facing the Jewish People as the
"difficulty of preserving, developing and furthering a unique Jewish identify
in an open and universally-minded global environment." They are frank
in noting the challenges to Jewish continuity in all Diaspora communities,
and a "discernable fear of an ever-widening gap between Israel and the
Diaspora" Crucially; they set forth concrete recommendations to strengthen
Diaspora-Israel ties.

What ties these papers together is a cogent, clear analysis of the changes
occurring in Israel and the United States which impact on the triangular
Israel-United States-Diaspora relationship.
I am encouraged that the State of Israel and the Jewish Agency recognizes
the long-term challenge of strengthening Jewish identity within the Diaspora
and between Diaspora Jews and the State of Israel, and is empowering
JPPPI to help find solutions to the challenge. The Jewish people over three
millennia has faced greater challenges and overcome them.
The Jewish people in the 21st century can do so as well.
Stuart E. Eizenstat, Chairman
JPPPI Board of Directors and
Professional Guiding Council