NADAV Annual Peoplehood Award

Stuart E. Eizenstat's

NADAV Peoplehood Awards Acceptance Speech

Irena, thank you for your wonderful work since making aliyah, as managing director of the Nadav Foundation; in establishing the Nevzlin Family Foundation which assists children with cancer and blood diseases; and launching the Israel Center for Better Childhood, to improve the welfare and educational opportunities of disadvantaged Israeli children.

Minister Yuli Edelstein and I met during this summer’s Prague Conference on Holocaust Assets, where he ably led the Israeli delegation, and I appreciate his commitment to belated justice for Holocaust victims, to which I have dedicated myself.

Natan Sharanksy is my hero, and, I am certain, yours as well. He was a symbol of the courage of the Soviet Jewish movement, never wavering in his Jewish faith and his commitment to human rights and democracy, even when his life was at stake in the Soviet Gulag. I met his wife Avital, before I met Natan, as she came to see me in the White House to plead that President Carter publicly state that Natan was not an American spy, as the Soviets charged. No president had ever made such a declaration about anyone, but her persuasive powers led the President to do so, helping to save his life. Now as a Minister in several governments and as head of the Jewish Agency, Natan has continued to be a leader in the Jewish world.

I am honored to receive the Nadav Foundation Award because of the person who founded the Fund. Leonid Nevzlin is a major star in the world Jewish firmanent. Under difficult circumstances, he was chairman of the coordination council of the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia, and then President of the Russian Jewish Congress, providing great leadership to Russian Jewry as they emerged from 70 years of Communism. After making aliyah in 2003, Leonid has become one of the most philanthropic Israeli citizens. He is Chairman of the Board of governors of Beth Hatefutsoth, where he is leading a major expansion and renovation of this museum of the history of the Jewish people; and serves on the board of trustees of Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. One of the reasons I agreed to succeed Dennis Ross as Chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) was because of the leadership role Leonid is playing in the Institute.

Permit me to also recognize my wife Fran, my partner for over four decades in all my work, my son Jay and daughter-in-law Jessica, and most especially, their son, my one year old grandson Yitzchok, who has the good judgment to sleep through my speech!. I also want to recognize Senator Joe Lieberman and Hadassa Lieberman, who have been personal friends but more important, great advocates for a strong US-Israel relationship, and their daughter Rebecca Lieberman, who worked so diligently on this event.

This PEOPLEHOOD award provides the theme for my brief remarks: what Jewish Peoplehood should mean in the 21st century, in the face of an unprecedented set of INTERNAL and EXTERNAL challenges in a rapidly changing global environment. But let me note in advance that in our great country, you can serve the U.S. government in a senior position and help Jewish Peoplehood. I have been able to do so on behalf of justice for Holocaust victims in the Clinton Administration. And in the Carter Administration, in addition to interceding on behalf of Natan Sharansky, I was able to persuade President Carter to issue a special visitors’ visa status that allowed some 50,000 Iranian Jews, Christians, and Baha’is, to escape the Khomeini revolution in 1979 and seek refuge in the United States.

For three millennia, we have been bound together as a people by shared religious, cultural and ethnic traditions, common values and beliefs, and by a remarkable common attachment to a Jewish homeland in Israel, from whence our Peoplehood began. There is no precedent in history for a people exiled twice from their homeland, and dispersed to the four corners of the earth, to hold onto a vision, now realized after 2000 years of creating a third Jewish Commonwealth in Israel.

The principal INTERNAL challenge is a demographic one, which impacts Jews in Diaspora differently than Jews in Israel. Today there are just over 13 million Jews in a world of 6 billion people. By mid-century, if current trends continue, there will likely be less than 14 million Jews in a world of 9 billion people. Some 52% of us live in only five urban areas around the world: Tel Aviv, New York, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and Haifa.

For the first time, since the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70CE more Jews live in the Israel than in any Diaspora community. While 80% of the Jews in the world live in the United States or Israel, a plurality lives in Israel. The center of gravity in the Jewish world is shifting each year more and more to Israel.

Birth rates in Israel are 50% higher than in the Diaspora, and intermarriage is virtually non-existent among Israeli Jews. In virtually every Diaspora community, with the ironic exception of Germany, there is a demographic crisis: declining numbers and an erosion of identify. In almost every Diaspora nation, Jewish birthrates are the lowest for any religious or ethnic group, and in the US, for example, they are below replacement rates. Combined with intermarriage rates that are near or above 50% in the US, most European and Latin countries (with Australia at the low end with 25%) and the very low levels of conversion to Judaism by the non-Jewish spouses, there is a demographic time bomb. We have always excelled in quality of contribution to the countries in which we are proud citizens--some 20% of the Nobel prizes are held by Jews, rather than quantity, but our stagnant or declining numbers create a unique challenge.

In the United States and Europe, we have the ironic situation of having been finally accepted as full, equal citizens, integrated into the fabric of the lives of our countries, able to express our Judaism openly and without fear. But rather than celebrating that and adding our contribution to the beautiful mosaic of diversity, too many of us have chosen to melt into the woodwork, assimilating, leaving behind our shared history and Peoplehood. In most countries in the Diaspora, certainly here in the US, we are like a corporation with two divisions, one healthy and vibrant, and the other threatening the drag down the enterprise. Certainly, the explosion in Jewish day school education, the dedication of large numbers of Jews to Jewish institutions, religious and secular, and to the strengthening of Jewish life demonstrates the dedication of an important core of Jews to strengthen and perpetuate Jewish life. But an equally large number are disaffiliating and disengaging.

To combat this trend we must dramatically increase our Day School enrollments, making Day Schools more affordable; exponentially increase the participation of young adults in Israel-based programs like Project Birthright, where recent studies show a significantly lower rate of intermarriage and stronger attachment to Jewish Peoplehood for participants; change our thinking about mixed marriages, if the non-Jewish spouse is willing to raise their children as Jewish; become more accepting of mixed married couples; and adopt proactive education and outreach programs like those of the Jewish Federation of Boston has done, with excellent results.

But there is another dimension to this. As former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suggested, it is time that Israel took a leadership role in strengthening the Diaspora, rather than simply seeing the Diaspora as a cheering squad for Israel. This will strengthen our common sense of Peoplehood, and is also in Israel’s national security interest, because a weakened Diaspora is unable to muster the strong support Israel needs. This is a critical challenge for the Jewish Agency under Natan’s leadership. In a report the Israeli government commissioned, JPPPI recommended various ways Israel can strengthen Jewish identity and Peoplehood:

--Encouraging all Jewish youth between 15-30 to visit Israel at least once;

-- Disseminating Jewish intellectual and cultures riches, including contemporary Israeli culture and Hebrew through collaborative projects;

--Serving as a center for training and support for Jewish education in the Diaspora, and establishing new schools and programs abroad for the study of Jewish culture--critically important given the challenges on American campuses;

--Establishing a Jewish World Service program, like the Peace Corps or the Mormon Missions for young adults, for Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.

--Creating a Global Jewish Foundation for supporting innovative grass-roots ventures for young people.

But to take on this new task, Israel needs to be inclusive, and embrace the entire Diaspora spectrum of pro-Israel, pro-Jewish people, without regard to their denomination or political views, and, in turn to make Israel a more accepting place for Jews or all persuasions. It diminishes a sense of shared Peoplehood when non-Orthodox Diaspora Jewish institutions are shunned and given second class treatment. If we are to enhance Peoplehood, we cannot be exclusive in our definitions of Jews. There are too few of us to permit circling the wagons too tightly.

There are other demographic factors at work which provide new challenges. There is a changing face in the US. California has already become the first non-Caucasian state by population, and the US will be as a nation by mid-century. This means that tens of millions of Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans, who have little historic identification with Jewish issues or the State of Israel, will become tomorrow’s leaders. It is imperative that they be cultivated, as organizations like Project Interchange of the American Jewish Committee has begun to do, bringing the young leaders of their communities to Israel, and establishing forums for dialogue in the U.S.

The face of Europe is changing as well. Today there are 25 million Muslims in Europe, some 10% of the populations of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. There will be 50 million Muslims in 2050. For sure, the overwhelming majority are productive, peaceful, law abiding members of their countries. But as they increasingly become active voting citizens, the foreign policy of Europe will be affected, in ways that may be even less friendly than now to Israel and Jewish concerns. And the growing pools of unemployed young Muslim men, angry at the discrimination against them, become potential recruits for radical Islamic movements in their adopted countries. This puts a premium on Jewish-Muslim dialogues, like the successful Jewish-Catholic dialogues, and on the Jewish community being advocates for anti-discrimination efforts, job creation, education and training, to offer hope where there is despair.

The internal demographic challenge is not limited to the Diaspora. The healthy birthrates in Israel among Israeli Jews are far outnumbered by the birthrates of Israeli Arabs and of Palestinians under Israeli control. This year, at least 50% of Israeli first graders are either Israeli Arabs (30%) or children from Haredi families; neither group has a strong Zionist commitment in terms of participation in Israeli institutions. By mid-century, there could be a majority of Arabs between the Mediterranean and Jordan Rivers. This is why permanent control over the Palestinian population will eventually compromise the ability of Israel to remain a democratic state with a majority population, the symbol of Jewish Peoplehood to Jews in every part of the world. For sure, Israel cannot make peace with itself. It must have a reliable Palestinian partner capable of enforcing an agreement against extremists, like Hamas. But peace is not a gift to the Palestinians; it is a necessity for Israeli Jews.

A sense of Peoplehood means to ability to talk with each othe as one would members of one’s family, across the thousands of miles, and give advice. I believe we do not help our brethren in Israel by failing to point out hard facts. For example, there is a risk that Israel will be increasingly isolated internationally on the issue of settlement expansion. Israel cannot make peace without a willing Palestinian partner. But Israel can at least avoid complicating prospects for a future peace. The responsibility for the impasse in the Middle East peace process should be clearly on the Palestinians, not Israel.

In addition to these internal challenges there are a combination of EXTERNAL challenges, most particularly the rise of radical Islamic jihadism and terrorism; a new form of anti-Semitism aimed at delegitimizing Israel as a Jewish state, and targeting Jews everywhere as surrogates for Israel; and the challenge of a potential nuclear armed Iran. Each is a subject worthy of an extensive speech. Here are a few brief thoughts about each.

The RISE OF RADICAL ISLAM is obviously a clear and present danger to both the State of Israel and to Jews around the world. But permit me to give this first external challenge a positive perspective.

This is not a war of civilizations by the Muslim world against the Western world. It is much more a war within the Muslim world. Far more innocent Muslims have been killed in this titanic clash than Israelis, Jews, or Americans. It is a battle between moderate pro-western, generally Sunni, regimes against anti-western, jihadist regimes. It is not directly related to the Middle East peace process, although peace would strengthen the hands of the moderates, but for supremacy within the Muslim world.

In addition, the U.S. and the West have as direct a stake in the outcome as Israel. Israel and the Jewish people are not alone. It is American soldiers, American dollars, American expertise, that is being put into this battle. Radicals must be attacked and taken on their own terms, while moderates must be empowered. Israel has a role to play here too, demonstrating to Palestinians and the broader Muslim world that those who seek a non-violent, peaceful solution will experience concrete economic and political benefits, even while radicals are attacked without quarter.

Moreover, I believe that the tide is turning against the extremists, despite the headlines. Pro-western moderate governments have been elected in Lebanon and Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation. The Saudis, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States, and now Pakistan see their own regimes threatened, and are fighting back. The extremists, by turning their guns on their own Muslim governments; by their own extremism in imposing severe Shiira law, and by attacking average Muslims in marketplaces and mosques have turned the publics against their evil cause. For sure, this is a long battle with many uncertainites, but I believe history is not with the radicals because most Muslims want a better way of life, not endless jihad.

Last, there are positive changes occuring in the Muslim world, as countries like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are intent on joining a globalized world economy and not being permanently left behind. They are creating secular education facilities, like the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, teaching women and men together. Some 80,000 Saudi young people, one third women, are studying in the US.

A second external challenge is the rise of a NEW FORM OF ANTI-SEMITISM. In the US there is virtually no traditional, religious-based anti-Semitism, except a radical fringe, although it can pop-up from time to time, even on the grounds of our Capitol last week when an enthusiastic tea-party activist held a sign saying that “Obama takes his orders from the Rothschild’s.” Indeed, as I have suggested the much greater danger is assimilation. In Europe, there remains a residue of the old anti-Semitism, which is overlaid with the potential anti-Jewish backlash from fringe elements of the growing Muslim community.

But the new anti-Semitism, which is a threat to the Diaspora and Israel alike, is aimed at Israel. As a sovereign state, Israel must be subject to the same criticisms as any other nation, without there aspersions of anti-Semitism. This is too heavy an allegation to be easily thrown-out. Natan Sharanksy has given us a good guidepost to distinguish legitimate criticism, however harsh and off the mark, from illegitimate criticism. He calls it the “three Ds”:

--Is Israel being demonized, for example with caricatures equating Israelis with Nazis and Palestinian refugee camps to Auschwitz?

--Is Israel being subjected to a double standard, for example by being treated more harshly than other countries?

--Is Israel being delegitimized as a Jewish state, denying Jews self-determination?

In the US, UK and Europe, more subtle forms of anti-Israeli feeling, which crosses a red-line, are evident in books and articles and in academic circles. The Goldstone Report is a case in point. Judge Goldstone himself can hardly be considered anti-Semitic. He is an active and engaged Jew in South Africa, involved with numerous Jewish organizations, and has a daughter who has lived in Israel. Israel, by its own admission, is subject to internationally binding treaties and contemporary international law regarding the rules of war. But from its original mandate from the notorious UN Human Rights Council, which has passed more anti-Israel resolutions than against all of the other 191 countries in the UN combined, to its highly slanted conclusions, Israel is treated in a discriminatory manner.

Increasingly, the new anti-Semitism, largely from radical Islamists, combines a distorted view of Islam with a desire to eliminate the Jewish State, and conflates Jews everywhere as surrogates for Israel and thus fair game and targets around the world, whether it is the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in the 1990s, or the Chabad House in Mumbai in 2008, or Israeli civilians through rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. When Hugo Chavez and his supporters intimidate Venezuelan Jews because they are all supposed supporters of all policies of the Israeli government, we know that anti-Semitism in a globalized era has indeed gone global. The prime progenitor of anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism is Iranian President Ahmadinajad, who has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and at the UN in September talked about a small minority which controls the economy and politics of the world. This is also Peoplehood, in which the fate of Israel and Jews cannot be separated. UJA Federation says “We are one”, and the radicals agree.

Here again, Jews are not isolated. The Obama Administration has taken a strong position against the Goldstone report. Leaders of key European countries, France, Germany, and the UK have taken strong measures to attack anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, as have institutions like the European Union, the European Court of Justice, and the OSCE, and the Secretary General of the United Nations. Those who are overtly anti-Semitic are increasingly treated like international pariahs.

The last external challenge comes from IRAN, through its support for terrorist groups which attack Israel to its determination to acquire a nuclear weapons capability. Iran possesses the enriched uranium for a bomb, which can be increased from civilian to nuclear weapons grade; the delivery system with missiles which can reach Israel and parts of Europe; and appears to have made considerable progress toward weaponization through the design of an advanced nuclear warhead (Julian Borger, The Guardian, November 6, 2009).

But here again, there is no reason for despair. Israel has the means to defend itself, both defensively and offensively. This is not a fight Israel needs take upon itself alone The US and the EU3 are as firmly committed as Israel to the prevention of a nuclear armed Iran. The Obama Administration’s two track process, incentives plus sanctions, is the right policy. I lived through the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the White House in 1979. We are now seeing a substantial grass-roots revolution in Iran, which, over time, can profoundly change the direction of Iran.

If Iran rejects the very nuclear agreement they reached with the international community last month, it will make it easier to develop a coalition for tougher sanctions. We have only scratched the surface of effective financial sanctions; much more can and must be done to isolate Iran from the global economy if it continues headlong toward a nuclear weapon, if we wish to avoid a military confrontation that is in no ones interest.

All of these INTERNAL and EXTERNAL challenges are difficult. But all are surmountable if we see ourselves bound up in a common enterprise to strengthen the Jewish people everywhere.

But these challenges should not overwhelm us. But from the Enlightenment in Europe in the late 18th and 19th centuries, down to today, Jews have been able to both become active, engaged, patriotic citizens of our home countries, while maintaining a remarkable sense of Peoplehood with Jews the world over. In 1840, the Jews of Damascus were falsely charged by killing a French monk. Jews throughout faraway Europe, led by Sir Moses Montefiore in England and Adolphe Cremieuix in France, intervened directly with Syria authorities to stop any persecution of fellow Jews. (Jacob Katz, “Out of the Ghetto”, Harvard 1972). Today, we have what did not exist then to serve as a powerful magnet previous generations lacked—a Jewish state around which to rally.

But precisely become Israel is becoming the epicenter of Jewish life worldwide, our Peoplehood will increasingly be defined by how Israel comes to terms not only with the Palestinians, but with itself. Israelis must decide for themselves the type of Israel they want: a Greater Israel with permanent control of a hostile population? What borders does Israel need to be secure but remain a democratic state with a Jewish majority? What relationship will it develop with its own Israeli Arab citizens and what relationship will they have with a Jewish State? What posture will Israel take toward Iran? Jews in the Diaspora can and should provide advice on these questions, but we are not citizens of Israel. Only Israel can make these momentous decisions, but Israelis must recognize that the way in which they answer these challenges will have dramatic impacts on Jews worldwide, and thus on Jewish Peoplehood.

We have survived for three millennia through far worse crises. We will not simply survive, we will thrive. We will continue to make disproportionate contributions to the betterment of mankind; we will find common cause as one people, while remaining proud citizens of our own countries, to make the world a better place in the traditional Jewish spirit of Tikkun Olam.