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CHALLENGES TO JEWISH IDENTITY

The Battle Ahead: Our Jewish Identity
NATAN SHARANSKY

... Today we live in the global, post-national, post-modem, post-identity world where people of the free world again are asked to make a choice between universalism and nationalism, between freedom and identity. If you believe in the universal values of freedom and human rights, why bother to stick to your national or ethnic identity, we are asked.

This question hits home in an especially difficult way for Jews. Doesn't Judaism prize tikkun olam, perfection of the world at large, as its highest value? If we insist on being part of a Jewish state, does that make a mockery of our larger, universal ideals? .. Why insist on staying part of a small tribe, when the great, global melting pot makes nationalities seem like nothing more than sentimental reminisces

And when one young Jew believes, ... that you cannot belong to both, they make the choice in favor of universalism. And then assimilation erodes our communities. And then it becomes more and more difficult for the people of Israel to defend their Jewish state. And our detractors sense our hesitation and our weakness and multiply their efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Then the most awful thing happens, A young Jew after months and sometimes years of standing in the face of extreme and false slanderous attacks on Israel, finally says enough-I want to live in the world without Israel....

[T]his choice between freedom and identity is a false one .... We must remind ourselves that we succeeded
in building the democratic State of Israel and bringing the ideas of human rights and equality to the darkest places populated by tyrants and dictators only because we were empowered by thousands of years of dreams and prayers of "Next Year in Jerusalem."

Today I speak here as the Chairman of the Jewish Agency. A Jewish Agency which connects between the Jewish world and the State of Israel and which together achieved great things and made history .... It was the Jewish Agency which coordinated the efforts of all the Jews of the world in helping to build a strong and modern state of Israel. And today of course we must always be ready, and we are ready, to continue to save every single Jew, to help everybody who wants to join us in Israel and to help every Jew in need wherever they are.

But our main battle today is to strengthen, to deepen, to build and to defend our Jewish identity-the identity of one people, those in Zion and those in the Diaspora. And in this battle it was proved again and again that we need one another. Today, Israel experience programs bring approximately one third of the Jewish people to Israel. Our aim must be to connect every young Jew with Israel and to connect Israel with every Jewish community of the world ....

Strengthening Jewish identity is the best answer in the struggle for Israel. Strengthening our Jewish identity is the best guarantee to continue kibbutz galuyot, gathering of the exiles. And most important today, like yesterday, returning to our Jewish roots, rebuilding our Jewish identity, can empower us to fight for tikkun oiam, with more justice and more freedom for everybody.

(Address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, November 9, 2009)

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