Should Israel invest effort and resources in identifying people around the world with “affinity” to the Jewish people to increase the number of people who support the state or perhaps even convert them to Judaism? Yes, concluded a committee that Minister of Education and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett appointed “to assess the relationship between Israel and communities around the world with some connection to the Jewish people.” The committee even went so far as to call the quest for such people an important strategic objective that should be implemented immediately.
The committee, which submitted its recommendations to the Cabinet on March 27, determined that there are tens of millions of people around the world with some level of connection to the Jewish people. It then developed a detailed plan for reaching out to them to gain their support for Israel and the Jewish people. According to the committee, an unprecedented new situation is emerging in terms of what constitutes being a Jew and how many Jews there might be. This, it concludes, offers an extraordinary opportunity to bring groups with some kind of connection to Judaism even closer to the Jewish people.
