This year, 40,000 Jewish from around the world will come to Israel thanks to Birthright. The Masa Program will bring 10,000 Jewish to live in Israel for a year.

The Diaspora is a strategic asset for the State of Israel. A book was recently published in Ireland that suggests legislating a "law of return" in Ireland. Israel is the main example used in the book. 

We need to think hard about the heart of Israel – which is here. The statistics on intermarriage, assimilation, and dying communities are disheartening. We need to draw Jews in, and not push them away by creating a kind of "defective Jew" – a phenomenon that I will not accept.

The question is what do we do to preserve our communities?

1.       Today, Jewish individualism is the focus, and not just large communities. The internet is a wonderful tool for tapping into this. Birthright and Masa reaches out to individuals. We must, and can, adopt this approach.

2.       There are various models for the Jewish connection to Israel. Of course, the clear preference is aliyah [moving to Israel], but this can also be a kind of "half aliyah" in which Jews live, or work, or study in Israel. This needs to be encouraged.

3.       Dealing with assimilation – We must recognize that there are communities with a deep connection to Israel, even if their members married non-Jews. 

All of these solutions, in tandem with other mechanisms (Birthright, Masa) will lay the foundation for dealing with demographic changes and with the future.