| 27.10.2018. 23:11 |
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Diaspora
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that the most serious challenge to Jews in the Diaspora was a loss of Jewish identity amongst Jewish youth, and that great efforts must be made to ensure the survival of the Jewish people outside of Israel.
Speaking at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, Netanyahu also implicitly blamed the Reform and Conservative movements for disputes over religious concerns in Israel, including prayer rights at the Western Wall and Jewish conversion, due to their legal petitions to the High Court of Justice
Citing an article by Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch calling for concern over the continuity of the Jewish people, Netanyahu said that Jews in the Diaspora must be concerned with Jewish survival.
“Jewish survival is guaranteed in the Jewish state if we defend out state. But we have to also work at the continuity of Jewish communities in the world by developing Jewish education, the study of Hebrew, having young Jews come to Israel,” he said.
“We need to do an approach in the internet age to young Jewish men and women and young Jewish children around the world so that they understand that their own future as Jews depends on continuous identity, and it’s protecting Jewish identity and developing Jewish consciousness that is the most important thing, it touches on the foundations of history.”
Speaking earlier in the conversation about disagreements between the government and the Jewish leadership in North America over the Western Wall, conversion and other concerns, Netanyahu repeated comments he has made in the past that matters of religion and state in Israel evolve over time through a series of compromises to the status quo on such concerns.
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