News
Uzi Narkiss Ends
Tenure With WZO
e invite your family to join our family for a week of festive
remembrance amidst the beauty of our country resort.
During sederim, the
Also officiating this Passover
voices of Cantor Shimon
Friday-Sunday, March 25-April 3
Farkas and Cantor Dov
Rabbi Michael Alony
Matthew Lazar
Farkas will inspire you,
Rabbi Abraham Garmaize
Choir Director
Rabbi
accompanied by the
Raymond Drillings
Mortimer Horowitz
Ritual Director
'-
Concord Symphonic
Kosher Supervisor
CANTOR
SHIMON FARKAS Chorale, directed by
Sabbath Elevator
Matthew Lazar.
Enjoy holiday entertainment, klezmer music, special
shows for children and teens, a full day camp program,
golf, 16 indoor tennis courts, 33,000 sq. ft. atrium coed
fitness center, indoor pool, and much more—plus three
delicious meals served daily. We're kosher 365 days
a year.
And we're only 90 miles from New York City. Direct
SHALOM '94
flights daily to nearby Stewart Airport (free transfers
Directed & Choreographed
from airport to The Concord).
by GAVRI LEVI
Tue., March 29
Come to The
bing, And ?I,
Evellf
e* so
Concord Hotel
this Passover. Let us celebrate together as
one family.
W
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CONCORD
RESORT HOTEL
The Concord Resort Hotel,
THE DETRO IT J EWISH NEWS
Kiamesha Lake, NY 12751 ir (914) 794-4000 • George Parker, General Manager
For reservations and info: 1 800 431-3850 • Fax (914) 794-7471
00
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Birmingham
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New York (JTA) — As Uzi
Narkiss winds up 27 years
with the World Zionist
Organization, and a two-
year stint heading its
American office here, the
retired general thinks it is
time for the organization to
change.
Mr. Narkiss believes that
as the WZO moves toward
its 1997 centenary, the
organization founded to
implement Theodor Herzl's
vision of a Jewish state must
shed some of its political
structure and gear itself to
ensuring a connection bet-
ween Israel and the
Diaspora.
"The State of Israel
without the Diaspora is not
the same Israel, and the
Diaspora without Israel is
not the same Diaspora," Mr.
Narkiss said in a recent
interview with - the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency as he
prepared his new post as
chairman of Israel's Coins
and Medals Authority.
But the two communities
could well drift apart, said
Mr. Narkiss, and not only
because of declining Jewish
identity in the Diaspora.
Mr. Narkiss fears that in
another decade, as Israel
finds itself the largest single
Jewish community in the
world, it could grow less in-
terested in Jews outside its
borders.
Adding to his fear is the
possibility that Israel's
reaching peace with its
neighbors could lead Israel
to "become more interested
with its Arab neighbors than
with the Jews."
"I am very concerned that
Israel will not turn, God for-
bid, Canaanite," said Mr.
Narkiss, referring to an anti-
Diaspora ideology that
sought to create an Israeli
identity rooted in the Middle
East and separate from the
Jewish religion.
In the years just before and
after the founding of the
State of Israel, a group of in-
tellectuals sought common
cause with Arabs in forming
a new culture. They were
often disparaged as
"Canaanites," pagans who
lived in the land before be-
ing conquered by the biblical
Israelites.
"The WZO has to take on
itself, as its main goal, that
Israel not turn into Canaan,
and that the peace process
not come between Israel and
the Diaspora," he said.
Helping the Diaspora re-
main connected to Israel
may be the easiest
challenge.
"It's very possible that
Israel will get much more
involved in the Jewish com-
munity, sending more
teachers to the Diaspora, en-
suring that every Bar Mitz-
vah child will visit Israel,"
said Mr. Narkiss.
"All of these can be the
mission of the WZO," he
said.
But how to help the
Israelis is a more com-
plicated question.
"The Jewishness (of
Israelis) is that we live in
Israel, go to the army, make
a circumcision and say
Kaddish," said Mr. Narkiss.
"If all the borders are
open, the Jewish nature of
Uzi Narkiss:
Sees need for changes.
the state will be diluted," he
said. "It's something we
have to think about. There's
no solution yet."
He cites his own grand-
children as an example of
the Israel- Diaspora gap.
"It's hard to get them to
listen to what I say — if it's
not about computer games —
when I say there are young
Jews in America.
"They want to go to
America, but for
Disneyland. They want to go
to Paris, for EuroDisney.
But it doesn't interest them
that there are young Jews
around the world," he said.
If the WZO is going to take
on the bold task of reversing
this apathy, said Mr.
Narkiss, it cannot continue
business as usual.
Its organizational struc-
ture, based on nearly a cen-
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