Einat Wilf, candidate for the presidency of the WJC
Photo: Ariel Besor
Vision for the Jewish people
Peoplehood must emerge as effective source of meaning and guidance for Jews
"The old shall dream dreams and the youth shall see visions"- Joel 2:28
KIBBUTZ KETURA - The withering of global Jewish organizations signals a need to affect a paradigm shift in how the Jewish people organizes and what issues around which to rally.
The World Jewish Congress was founded in 1936, truly a dark period in world and Jewish history. Nachum Goldman and Edgar Bronfman stepped forward into history and did not give into the despair. While there are physical threats to the Jewish state and people today, we also live in arguably a Platinum Era that presents unprecedented new opportunities and challenges. And this requires new leadership.
The World Jewish Congress of the future must not be held hostage to the fear and agendas of the past. Yes, the WJC and others should fight anti-Semitism and isolate Iran and the WJC can uniquely make these campaigns international. But an inspired World Jewish Congress can also be animated by the prophetic dreams of our people.
We have always been at our best when we have had a sense of mission and it is time to restore a sense of inspired mission to world Jewry through the World Jewish Congress.
The purpose of Jewish eoplehood in the 21st Century is to connect and inspire Jews worldwide to be an ongoing, distinctive catalyst for the advancement and evolution of morality in civilization. While this can't be contained within a single organization, not even one with the track record and potential reach of the World Jewish Congress, the representative organization of the Jewish people must reflect and champion this mission.
Since Peoplehood is becoming the Jewish Holy Grail of identity and political organizing for our age, it must emerge as an effective source of meaning and guidance in the lives of the majority of our people. Peoplehood turns us away from self-defeating exclusion and toward powerful inclusion. Peoplehood must have content and depth, values and mitzvoth.
It must go beyond who we are, to become what we must do. It must say something about how to lead a good life in this world at this time, and how the Jewish people can be good global citizens.
Only Wilf can lead change
I support Einat Wilf's candidacy for the presidency of the World Jewish Congress because she embodies the potential of the Jewish people. Wilf, 36, would be the first woman and the first Israeli and the first intellectual to hold the post of president of world Jewry's representative body. She has vision, integrity and is the only candidate who can offer the WJC a clean start.
Her two opponents, Ronald Lauder and Mendel Kaplan, have been implicated in the financial mismanagement of the WJC by virtue of serving, respectively, as WJC treasurer and chair of the governing board, during the years of sloppy fiscal leadership.
The top leadership should not only be billionaires, but also those who are willing to invest themselves in the transformation of our people in the 21st century and who bring precious - yes, even priceless - new ideas, constituencies and energy to the endeavor.
And with a shift from the super elite to the educated masses will inevitably emerge a more universalistic agenda that is also the best way to protect the specific interests of the Jewish people.
The Iranian threat is clearly the top security issue facing the Jewish people. Yet to campaign against Iran's genocidal threats without making it also a priority to prevent genocides against the people of Darfur or Congo is to fail our Torah, our people, our homeland and the world.
The next generation, along with the educated Jewish masses, understands that a world that has been catalyzed to prevent genocides in Africa is a world that will not stand idly by when the Jewish state is being threatened with annihilation. And it is this vision of the future of the World Jewish Congress that will mobilize, once again,large numbers of our people and our many friends.
Of all the candidates for the Presidency of the World Jewish Congress,only Einat Wilf can lead the change we hope to see.
Yosef Israel Abramowitz blogs daily at www.Peoplehood.org, founded SocialAction.com, served as chair of the Koret International JewishBook Awards last year and is a former member of the World Jewish Congress Executive. He is a member of Kol Dor and co-chairs the third annual global Jewish Social Action Month this coming Cheshvan.
