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All major periods of Natan Sharansky's life coincidentally lasted the same time. He spent nine years in Soviet prisons as a prisoner of Zion, another nine years in Israeli politics (both as legislator and minister) and this week concludes nine years as President of the Agency Jewish.
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In hindsight, this last chapter of his life will probably remember more of what he has not accomplished than that of that he did.
Indeed, the fighting spirit that earned Sharansky the world-renowned Soviet dissident in the years 1970 was barely evident during his stay at the Agency, where he spent much of his time trying – though generally failing – to get the Israeli government to show more respect and consideration for the Jewish Diaspora.
The culmination of Sharansky's tenure at the Agency was supposed to be an agreement granting recognition to the unorthodox movements at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
The agreement provided for the creation of a new and improved egalitarian prayer section in the southern reaches of the Kotel, which would benefit from as much visibility and access as the Current place of segregationist prayer on the north side. Another key element of the agreement was to provide conservative and reformist movements with a representation of a new authority that would oversee the newly created prayer space.
The space was supposed to be Israel's way of showing the Jews of the diaspora that he wanted them to feel at home in the country.
More than five years ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned Sharansky to his office and asked him to find a solution to the ongoing clashes at the Wailing Wall between ultra-Orthodox (or haredi) worshipers and women. the wall – a feminist prayer group that holds a monthly service on the site.
Sharansky proposed moving the group from its usual place in the women's prayer section to the egalitarian space further away, while significantly improving the area as a sign of goodwill towards reformist and conservative Jews.
Netanyahu first loved the idea and set up a committee to flesh out the details. It took several years, but finally a detailed plan – based on Sharansky's plan – was developed.
But as soon as it was approved, he began to unravel. Netanyahu was pressured by his ultra-Orthodox government coalition partners to cancel the deal, and he eventually succumbed.
Sharansky tried to warn Netanyahu that He would jeopardize Israel 's relations with the Jewish diaspora when he gave in, but his pleas fell in the ear of a deaf man. Meanwhile, conservative and reformist movements fought for equal rights at one of Judaism's most sacred sites in the Israeli High Court, where the case is still pending. .
This is not the legacy that Sharansky was hoping to leave behind. In his defense, he argued that all is not lost, since some elements of the agreement on the Western Wall seem to have been recovered. For example, Netanyahu promised to go ahead with plans for a physical upgrade of the existing egalitarian prayer space (although this also failed because the ministers supposed to oversee the project have recently resigned for fear of an ultra-orthodox reaction).
The dismantling of the agreement on the Western Wall was not the only major setback of Sharansky in power. As President of the Agency, the former Soviet dissident saw one of his main functions of representing the Jewish world to the leaders of the Israeli government.
Israel's policy of conversions to Judaism and its attitude towards the converts has long been a sore point for the leaders of the Jewish world. In addition to not recognizing unorthodox conversions, Israel has also begun in recent years to question the validity of conversions made by many modern Orthodox rabbis abroad.
Sharansky had hoped to bring at least a partial solution through a rather daring initiative that he unveiled, with much fanfare, three years ago. This initiative provided for the creation of a special conversion court that would send rabbis from Israel to overseas communities increasingly challenged by the stringent demands and oversight powers of the Chief Rabbinate Israeli.
However, nothing has ever been done about this proposal – in part because it required the cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, which is currently under the auspices of the ultra-Orthodox party Shas.
Sharansky also failed to get Israel to recognize emerging Jewish communities. The community of Abayudaya in Uganda, for example, whose members have been refused entry to Israel on several occasions because the Interior Ministry does not recognize their conversions made by conservative rabbis , is a good example. Sharansky's calls to the Ministry of the Interior to reconsider his tough stance and show compbadion have so far been ignored.
Political Falcon
Born in Donetsk (today Ukraine) in 1948, Sharansky became involved in the refusenik movement in the early 1970s after being denied an exit visa for Israel. In 1978, he was sentenced to 13 years of forced labor in the Soviet Union, after being accused of high treason and espionage for Americans. After nine years in Soviet prisons, he was released in February 1986 and quickly transferred to Israel, where he joined his wife Avital – who led the campaign for his release.
Ten years later, he founded a political party, Yisrael Be 'Aliyah, which was aimed at the huge wave of Russian-speaking immigrants who arrived in Israel in the 1990s. (It eventually merged with the Likud.)
From 1996 to 2005, Sharansky was minister and deputy prime minister in four consecutive governments and was considered a political hawk. As Minister of Industry and Trade, for example, he gave priority to investments in settlements in the West Bank.
Since leaving politics, however, he has taken a more moderate stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although he supports in principle a two-state solution, in a recent farewell interview with Haaretz, he said that he did not harbor much hope of reaching an agreement in a near future, blaming the Palestinians outright.
Sharansky, the world's best-known Soviet dissident, is often considered the flag-bearer of immigration to Israel. Ironically, however, under his leadership, the promotion of immigration has ceased to be the main priority of the Agency.
Many people blame him for not focusing on what has long been considered the raison d'être of the organization and allowing private organizations – such as the International Brotherhood of Christians and Jews – funded by empty evangelists.
But there was a logic to the move. By the time Sharansky took the helm of the agency in 2009, immigration to Israel had stagnated for several years, with no signs of a rebound. As he noted in his recent interview with Haaretz: "The aliyah rescue days are pretty much over. Those who come today come out of free choice because they believe that it is a better place for them to live as Jews. "
To justify his retention, Sharansky believed that the Agency had to reinvent itself and put its energies elsewhere. Rather than immigration and absorption, his main priorities during his tenure became Jewish engagement with Israel and strengthening ties between Israel and diaspora communities.
"I do not believe in telling people that they have to do their aliyah, and if they do not do their Aliyah, they are bad Jews," he told Haaretz in March. "If we want more immigrants here, it means we have to make sure there are more Jews." And the way to do it when badimilation rates are so high is to s & dquo; To ensure that there are more people connected to Jewish life and to Israel. "
One of his key legacies in this regard was the expansion and promotion of Masa – a project that brings 12,000 young Jews to Israel each year over a wide badortment programs of study, volunteering and internships. Sharansky likes to boast that a disproportionate percentage of young Jews who have chosen to settle in Israel in recent years are Masa graduates.
Masa was actually launched a few years before Sharansky took office, but under his patronage, he came to compete with Taglit-Birthright as the best experience program in Israel.
His other favorite project was Campus Israel Fellows, which was on his own initiative. Through this program, nearly 100 young Israelis are now stationed on university campuses in North America, where they work to strengthen the leadership of Jewish students and engage Jewish students with Israel. Sharansky sees them as a major force in the fight against the international BDS movement, which calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
Yet, despite all these efforts, a survey after investigation shows that the Y generation of Jews has moved further and further away from Israel in recent years. Sharansky is definitely not to blame. What is indisputable, however, is that it came under his supervision.
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