With food co-operatives, annual internship tie-ups in industries, academic-religious studies, and social projects, Israel is trying to attract its diaspora to help them stay connected with their country, and if possible, return.
With about 60 per cent of Israeli Jews living in foreign countries, and nearly 5,000 in Mumbai, Israel’s Jewish Agency has a difficult task to bring together its community spread worldwide and connect the new generation with its roots.
In New Delhi for a conference in Jawaharlal Nehru University and to meet officers of the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Yigal Palmor, Director of Public Affairs and Communications at The Jewish Agency for Israel, explained how the agency works and the area where Israel and India can collaborate.
According to him, each year 11 young Israeli Jewish technology professionals are invited to the country to work with start-ups and industries. Besides, the Israeli diaspora is also engaged in social projects such as Youth Futures (mentoring at-risk children), and Youth Villages — boarding school for youth with severe emotional, behavioral and family problems. A recent project of chain of food co-ops too has been received well by the diaspora, Palmor said.
“Young programmers from abroad can take part in the exciting scene of Israel’s hi-tech industry and the technological startups that sizzle with creativity and innovation. This helps them make friends and contacts besides adding knowledge,” Palmor explained.
“The idea is to offer full immersion experiences in Israel, so that participants not only discover things they may have ignored, but actually care about what they find out. More than discovering the country and the people, these programs aim at making participants discover themselves. Or at least something about themselves that will make them want to stay connected — to each other, to their heritage and to Israel,” said Palmor.
He felt that India and Israel can have an exchange of ideas on how to engage their diaspora more effectively. “This is an area where we can collaborate by sharing experience,” felt Palmor, a former spokesman of the Foreign Ministry of Israel.
Funded by donors from Jewish communities abroad, the Jewish Agency’s mission is to handle Aliyah — Jewish immigration to Israel — and to interconnect Jewish communities with Israel. The total number of the core Jewish population in the world is estimated to be about 14.3 million, of which 6.3 million reside in Israel.
The ratio is therefore 40 per cent in the national home versus 60 per cent in the diaspora. The most important Jewish communities in the world are in USA (5.7 million), France (4,67,000), Canada (3,86,000), UK (2,90,000), Russia (1,83,000), Argentina (1,81,000), Germany (1,18,000), Australia (1,13,000), Brazil (94,000), South Africa (70,000), Ukraine (60,000).