Isaac Herzog: ‘Diaspora Jews are drifting away from Israel’

Isaac Herzog, new Head of the Jewish Agency, formerly Leader of the Labour Party

Jewish Telegraph Agency News Brief reports, “Laying out his vision for the future of the Jewish Agency in an address to American Jewish leaders last week, Isaac Herzog described a Jewish people fracturing along geographic lines and said that one of his top priorities would be examining new ways for more Jews to connect to Jewish life and Israel. Speaking in New York during his first U.S. visit since taking over at the Jewish Agency, Herzog said that while both Diaspora and Israeli Jews desired to maintain strong bonds, he was also “very aware of the growing feeling that Diaspora Jews are drifting away from Israel.”…

“According to a landmark 2013 poll of American Jews by the Pew Research Center, overall “emotional attachment to Israel has not waned discernibly among American Jews in the past decade” although it was “markedly stronger” among older Jews. Pew also found that nearly 60 percent of Jewish marriages since the year 2000 were mixed. A 2007 study found that around half of Jews under 35 would not see Israel’s destruction as a personal tragedy.” (more…)