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Religious Zionist Shlichut:

Uniting Israel and the Diaspora

An Introduction by Rabbi Aron White

“.....this anchors in Israel’s Basic Laws the values of been open to them for years and they haven’t come.
the State of Israel, as a Jewish and democratic State.” Why am I responsible for them? They have chosen to
(Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, 1992) be Ukrainians, let them save themselves.”
What is the essence of the State of Israel? Is it a dem- One of the greatest counterweights to attitudes like
ocratic state like any other that should fall in line with these is the deep commitment of Israeli shlichim to
the norms and practices of Western democracies? Or Jewish communities all over the world. Every year,
is Israel more fundamentally a Jewish state meant to thousands of Israel’s best and brightest choose to
express a uniquely Jewish identity as the homeland of leave their homeland to connect with and inspire
G-d’s chosen people? Israelis have debated this issue their Jewish brothers and sisters all over the world.
from the very founding of the modern State. The bedrock foundation of Israeli shlichut is the belief
This is not merely a theoretical question. If Israel is that Israel is the homeland of all Jews, no matter
fundamentally a Jewish state, then it serves as the where they live, and that Israelis therefore have an
homeland for the entire Jewish people – including obligation to strengthen ties with Diaspora Jewry.
the millions of Jews who live outside its borders. But And while all Israeli shlichim help Diaspora Jews con-
if Israel is primarily a democratic state, its obligations nect to their national homeland, the many hundreds
extend only to its own citizens; it owes no special of Religious Zionist shlichim serving in the Diaspora
obligation to Jews in the Diaspora. go a step further, binding Diaspora Jewry to their
religious and spiritual home.
There was once broad consensus concerning Israel’s
responsibility for Diaspora Jewry, but this consensus In this edition, we tell the story of the extraordinary
has begun to break down. A.B. Yehoshua, one of Isra- Religious Zionist shlichim who reach hundreds of
el’s greatest writers, infamously described the Jews of thousands of Jews each year. From a Sunday school in
America as “partial Jews”, compared to the “complete Buenos Aires to a summer camp in Sydney, from the
Jews” of Israel. This past February, as the Russian community kollel of Montreal to supporting Ukrainian
military prepared to invade Ukraine, popular TV host refugees in Moldova, Religious Zionist shlichut is
Yaron London laughed when asked on primetime diverse, global and growing. They are the emissar-
television if Israel should help the Jews of Ukraine. ies of Torat Eretz Yisrael, a bridge between Jews all
“We shouldn’t do anything for them,” he said. “They over the world to the Jewish State and its national
don’t want to make Aliyah; the gates of Israel have and spiritual identity.

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