The “New” Pilgrims

The biggest threat to the future of the Jewish people is no longer anti-Semitism or genocidal war, but rather apathy and loss of identity among Jews themselves. By facilitating the visits of thousands of young Diaspora Jews to Israel, the Birthright Israel program is reviving a traditional Jewish custom to meet these modern challenges – pilgrimage to the holy land.

Since it began in the winter of 2000, Birthright has brought over 160,000 Jews, aged 18-26 from 52 countries to Israel, offering fully subsidized 10-day visits. These voyages of discovery have a refreshing message for the Jewish communities in the Diaspora, as well as in Israel, and could radically change the way Jews think about themselves. This, in turn, could help reverse the insidious trends that threaten the Jewish future.

Pilgrimage is a set of individual acts, which culminate in a mass movement. It creates a special time framework in which unique experiences occur. Over the generations, pilgrims have tended to dress up in distinctive costumes, signifying an alteration in their existential state. The pilgrimage is to a venerated site, takes place at a defined time and has unique ritualistic practices. The pilgrims and the society they come from and to which they return see the pilgrimage as outside the compass of their daily routine. It has its own system of time and space, its own social connections and patterns of behavior, known in the literature as “liminality.”

Those who return from a pilgrimage are accorded a special status in society, and are expected to conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. They transform the experience they underwent into a new plane of being. In many ways, the pilgrimage is a consciousness-altering experience.

However different Birthright, which emphasizes fun as much as anything else, may be to traditional pilgrimage, it has many of the same characteristics. It is also a movement of individuals that surges into a mass wave. The preparation, the special conduct before, during and after the journey ensure a similar though modern ritual. It too has the capacity to change attitudes and patterns of behavior in the routine worlds – in our case, in the Diaspora and in Israel.

To gain as much as possible from the Birthright program, we should examine how to intensify the “born-again” experience for the participants from the Diaspora. The goal should be a profound change in consciousness caused by the experiences they encounter on the journey. This kind of personal change, which might seem like a mutation of the personal identity gene, is a process that can be guided by carefully crafted educational content.

Ref: Jersualem Post
Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson of Kadima is Chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

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Demography – the need to have a large majority of Jews to sustain a Jewish state – has certainly been a key concern for Israel since its foundation.
Under a 1947 UN-sanctioned plan to partition Palestine, Israel would have been established on 55% of the former territory, without a significant transfer of population, the Jews in the territory would have scarcely have exceeded the Arab population there.
The 1948 war ended with Israel in control of 78% of the former Palestine, with a Jewish-Arab ratio of 6:1.
The equation brought security for Jewish Israelis, but emptied hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns of 700,000 inhabitants – the kernel of the Palestinian refugee problem today.
With the justification of not wanting to jeopardise its Jewish majority, Israel has kept Palestinian refugees and their descendants out of negotiations on a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Ref: Obstacles to peace

World Bank: Israel limits impact of aid to Palestinians

Despite $7.7 billion in aid pledged to Palestinians, economic growth in PA muted due to Israeli-imposed restrictions on travel and trade, new World Bank survey reveals. Figures show 96% of industrial operations in Gaza suspended

Billions of aid dollars pledged to the Palestinians to bolster peace talks with Israel are having a muted economic impact because of Israeli restrictions on travel and trade, the World Bank said on Sunday.

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The lending agency told donor nations in a report that per capita income in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 2008 would be static, if not lower, despite the $7.7 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinians in December.

The World Bank said modest gains in economic growth in the occupied West Bank, where western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas’ government holds sway, were not sufficient to offset the “severe contraction” seen in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Israel tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip after the Islamist group’s takeover in June from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Abbas.

“While the PA (Palestinian Authority) has moved ahead with its economic reforms, albeit slowly, there has been little progress on relaxing movement and access constraints,” the bank said in the report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters.

The World Bank said the impact of these restrictions, including hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank, “cannot be overestimated.”

Industrial operations suspended
Western aid, frozen after Hamas won control of the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 elections, has since resumed to Abbas’ government to bolster final-status peace talks launched with Israel in November.

But those talks have shown little sign of progress and Israel has balked at removing major West Bank checkpoints and roadblocks, arguing that they are necessary to stop suicide bombers from reaching its cities. Palestinians call the obstacles collective punishment.

While the International Monetary Fund has projected growth of 3% in 2008, the World Bank said: “Taking into account population growth, it can be concluded that under the current movement and access restrictions, per capita incomes will drop or remain the same.”

The World Bank said Israel’s tightened cordon of the Gaza Strip has “considerably eroded whatever private sector backbone remained in the economy, and in a manner that is progressively more difficult to reverse.”

The bank, citing business associations in Gaza, said the current restrictions have led to the suspension of 96% of Gaza’s industrial operations.

Following a recent visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israel announced plans to remove 61 barriers in the West Bank. But a UN survey subsequently found that only 44 of the 61 obstacles had been removed and that most of them were of little to no significance.