![]() Last week, Israeli media reported that the interior ministry retroactively revoked the Jewish status of 2,200 children. Last year it emerged that the Chief Rabbinate was asking some Russian-speaking immigrants to take DNA tests to prove their Jewish heritage. In recent years, Israel’s Orthodox Chief Rabbinate has come under fire for allegedly “blacklisting” American Orthodox rabbis that it does not trust to recognize the Jewish identity of American immigrants to Israel. There are separate women and men’s sections, but no equitable space for non-Orthodox prayer.Ī compromise deal brokered by former Jewish Agency chair Natan Sharansky was widely seen as a way out of the impasse over the site, but in 2017, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended the deal, leaving American Jewish leaders feeling betrayed.Īuthentic Jewish identity is another major point of tension. The holy site is overseen by a government body, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which runs it according to an Orthodox tradition. ![]() One of the major flashpoints between Israel and organized American Jewry is the Kotel. However, due to infighting among the ministry, the Jewish Agency and the Prime Minister’s Office, the project never launched. Under the last minister, Naftali Bennett, who ran the Diaspora Ministry while also serving as education minister, the ministry attempted to radically expand its operations, touting a plan under which it would pour billions of dollars into Diaspora communities in an initiative to strengthen Jewish identity. Just as the Foreign Ministry handles dealings with foreign nations, the Diaspora minister is the official in charge of taking the point on relations with Jewish communities abroad. Its minister typically took on a second, more prominent portfolio. The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has traditionally been one of the smaller and least-funded government agencies in Israel, and until 2015 it did not stand on its own. Will she work to bridge the divides that have widened between Israel and international Jews? Will she compromise with the religious community in Israel to which she belongs? She’s also the first haredi woman to hold a Cabinet position in Israeli government and is taking criticism for that (many in her community say her participation in politics is scandalous). Yankelevich’s role is complicated by the fact that she is haredi Orthodox - part of a community that is at the heart of some of the issues putting a wedge between Israel and the Diaspora. Much of America’s largely liberal-leading Jewish majority feels alienated by Israel’s right-wing government and its hawkish policies. Among them: who can pray at the Kotel and who Israel’s Chief Rabbinate deems Jewish. It has never been an easy task, but tensions in recent years between Israel and communities in the United States and elsewhere have boiled to all-time highs over several high-profile social, political and religious disagreements. JERUSALEM - Omer Yankelevich is the new minister of Diaspora affairs in Israel, charged with managing the Jewish state’s relations with Jewish communities abroad.
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