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Grecian Chest
Keyed Top Drawer
36" Lx24" Dx29" High
Everadi*Bronze Marble Top

The Man With A Plan

New Jewish Agency chairman Avrum Burg outlines
a plan to address the unpleasant realities of
Jewish life.

INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

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Alicia R. Nelson

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Advertising in The Jewish News Gets Results
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he highlight of the Jewish
Agency Assembly was the
election of Avraham
"Avrum" Burg as chairman
of the Jewish Agency for Israel
and of Charles "Corky" Goodman
as chairman of JAFI's Board of
Governors.
But the most intriguing aspect
of the annual conclave was the
publication Of Mr. Burg's analy-
sis of the ills of the Jewish people
and its "National Institutions"
(read: the Jewish Agency), as well
as his vision for the future. Lest
the 40-year-old newcomer to Jew-
ish Agency affairs be considered
a lightweight or a "greener," Mr.
Burg published a 74-page tract
titled "A Covenant of the People"
to put his ideas across.
Clearly the new JAFI chair-
man did his homework in prepar-
ing the document, which
reiterates themes he has focused
on in the past while borrowing
from other programs ("The
Jerusalem Plan 1997," drafted by
Professor Haim Ben-Shahar and
Dr. Arye Carmon, for one). Per-
haps the most refreshing and
valuable aspect of Mr. Burg's
pamphlet, however, is his ability
to look some rather unpleasant
realities of Jewish life straight in
the eye and call them by name.
For example, his analysis be-
gins not only with the familiar
warning about the "danger of as-
similation in the Diaspora" but
speaks with equal candor about
the "estrangement from the Jew-
ish people and alienation from
Jewish tradition in Israel." Cit-
ing a recent survey in which only
6 percent of Israelis between the
ages of 18 and 29 defined them-
selves as Zionists, Mr. Burg
writes that "For a large number
of Israelis, the word 'Jewish' is an
incomprehensible adjective which
appears in their identity cards
under 'nationality.'"
The result of this two-pronged
trend — assimilation in the Di-
aspora and growing alienation
from Judaism and Zionism in Is-
rael itself — is what Mr. Burg
characterizes as a "widening
chasm between Israeli and Dias-
pora Jews." The solution he
broadly outlines in the pamphlet
is a program of Jewish-Zionist ed-
ucation that will focus "on Ju-
daism as a multi-faceted world
offering an ever-evolving, unique
and pluralistic national culture."
Formerly chairman- of the
Knesset Education Committee,

Mit, 1:41, 11WPAAVP&440444g, At ,c*- ':

-kribing curricula than explairi'

-

ing how Jewish communities can
cope with the financial burden of
building and running Jewish
schools (except to write that the
"school system will be funded by
a special fund-raising campaign").
He also is weak on how to attract
children into Jewish classrooms
in an age of burgeoning assimi-
lation.
Perhaps because of these ma-
jor hurdles, considerable atten-
tion is devoted to non-traditional
approaches to education, such as
the founding of an "Open Uni-
versity of the Jewish People" that
will be run through the Internet;
the establishment of a satellite
channel for Jewish and Israeli
culture; and the development of
multimedia programs, worldwide
competitions on Jewish heritage,
and interactive data bases. Show-
ing his mastery of the language
of the '90s, Mr. Burg even writes
of the need to "segment the mar-
ket of 'educational consumers"'

Mr. Burg published a
74-page tract to put
his ideas across.

and of plans to "make use of so-
phisticated marketing techniques
to impart Jewish-Zionist educa-
tion."
Among the other highlights of
the plan are:
* Establishing an umbrella or-
ganization to facilitate the coor-
dination between all existing
Jewish organizations.
* Encouraging varied modes of
connection between Israel and
the Diaspora, with an emphasis
on different forms of philanthropy
and visits to Israel. (Mr. Burg
cites studies showing that the
rate of intermarriage is lower
among those who have visited Is-
rael but received little or no Jew-
ish education than among those
who received a comprehensive
Jewish education but have nev-
er visited Israel.)
* Establishing an Israeli fund-
raising appeal as one way of re-
versing what Mr. Burg calls
Israel's "culture of entitlement"
(the sense of being "entitled" to
aid from Diaspora Jewry even at
a time when the economic situ-
ation in Israel is better than that
in many Diaspora communities).
, t Creating a "Jewish lobby" in
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