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JPPI Annual Assessment 2012-2013

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Annual Assessment No. 9 2012-2013 Annual Assessment - Jewish People Policy Institute ANNUAL ASSESSMENT JPPI's Dashboard for the Past Year: Threats and Opportunities for the Jewish Civilization THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE (Established by the Jewish Agency for Israel) Ltd. www.jppi.org.il Givat Ram Campus • P.O.B. 39156 Jerusalem 9139101 [email protected] Tel: 972-2-5633356 • Fax: 972-2-5635040 ISBN 978-965-7549-08-7 Partners and Members Board of Directors and Professional About JPPI of the General Meeting: Guiding Council: The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) is an independent professional policy planning think tank Lester Crown and Charles Goodman Co-Chairs incorporated as a private non-profit company in Israel. The mission of the Institute is to ensure the thriving on behalf of Crown Family Philanthropies Stuart Eizenstat of the Jewish people and the Jewish civilization by engaging in professional strategic thinking and planning Dennis Ross on issues of primary concern to world Jewry. Located in Jerusalem, the concept of JPPI regarding the Jewish Irina Nevzlin Kogan Associate Chair people is global, and includes aspects of major Jewish communities with Israel as one of them, at the core. on behalf of Nadav Foundation Leonid Nevzlin JPPI’s activities are action-oriented, placing special emphasis on identifying critical options and analyzing their Jerry W. Levin Members of the Board potential impact on the future. To this end, the Institute works toward developing professional strategic and as President of UJA Federation of New York Elliott Abrams long-term policy perspectives exploring key factors that may endanger or enhance the future of the Jewish Irwin Cotler People. JPPI provides professionals, decision makers, and global leaders with: Ratner Family Sami Friedrich Charles Ratner Dan Halperin • Surveys and analyses of key situations and dynamics Steve Hoffman as Chairman of the JAFI Budget • “Alerts” to emerging opportunities and threats Alan Hoffmann and Finance Committee David Kolitz • Assessment of important current events and anticipated developments Vernon Kurtz Natan Sharansky • Strategic action options and innovative alternatives Morlie Levin • Policy option analysis as Chairman of the JAFI Executive Bernard-Henri Lévy • Agenda setting, policy recommendations, and work plan design Paul E. Singer Glen Lewy Judit Bokser Liwerant on behalf of the Paul E. Singer Foundation Isaac Molho JPPI is unique in dealing with the future of the Jewish people as a whole within a methodological framework of study and policy development. Its independence is assured by its company articles, The Judy & Michael Steinhardt Foundation Steven Nasatir Avi Pazner with a board of directors co-chaired by Ambassadors Stuart Eizenstat and Dennis Ross - both have James Tisch Jehuda Reinharz served in the highest eschelons of the U.S. government, and Leonid Nevzlin in Israel - and composed as Chairman of the JAFI Board of Governors John Ruskay of individuals with significant policy experience. The board of directors also serves as the Institute’s Doron Shorer Professional Guiding Council. Jerry Silverman Our thanks to UJA Federation of New York, the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, Ted Sokolsky the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Alan Solow the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Michael Steinhardt Alex Grass z"l and Jack Kay z"l Aharon Yadlin for their support of this project. President and Founding Director Avinoam Bar-Yosef Academic Counselor Suzanne Last Stone Projects Coordinator Ita Alcalay ANNUal ASSESSMENT 2012-2013 No. 9 Battling De-Legitimization 30 years of Patrilineal Descent The Jews of Europe and Latin America Jewish Leadership PROJECT HEAD Dr. Shlomo Fischer coNTRIBUtorS Gedaliah Afterman, Avinoam Bar-Yosef, Nadia Ellis, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Avi Gil, Inbal Hakman, Michael Herzog, Arielle Kandel, Antony Korenstein, Judit Bokser Liwerant, Dov Maimon, Asaf Nissenbaum, Steven Popper, Barry Rosenberg , Shmuel Rosner, Noah Slepkov, Suzanne Last Stone, Shalom Salomon Wald EDITORS Barry Geltman Rami Tal Copyright © The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) (Established by the Jewish Agency for Israel, Ltd.) Jerusalem 2013/5773 JPPI, Givat Ram Campus, P.O.B 39156, Jerusalem 9139101, Israel Telephone: 972-2-5633356 | Fax: 972-2-5635040 | www.jppi.org.il All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be translated, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission from the publisher. Printed and Distributed by the Jewish People Policy Institute Graphic Design: Lotte Design Cover Design: Shlomit Wolf, Lotte Design ISBN 978-965-7549-08-7 Table of Contents Foreword 5 Agenda: Dilemmas and Recommended Policy Directions 2012-2013 9 Selected Indicators of World Jewry – 2012-2013 18 2012-2013 Integrated ‘Net’ Assessment 21 Part One: Geopolitics 31 Combating De-Legitimization 33 Israel and the Jewish People: Geopolitical Developments, 2012-2013 43 The Triangular Relationship – Washington, Jerusalem, and the Jewish People; 2013: New U.S. and Israeli Administrations, Challenges and Opportunities 71 The Rise of Asia: Policy Implications for Israel and the Jewish People 89 Part Two: Developments in the Jewish World 101 Fathers of the Faith? Three Decades of Patrilineal Descent in American Reform Judaism 103 Jewish Leadership in North America – Changes in Personnel and Structure 137 European Jewry – Signals and Noise: Is there a point of negative inflection? 159 Latin American Jewish life in the 21st Century: The paradox of shrinking communities, and expanded - revitalized Jewish life 173 Part Three: Developments to Watch: Religion and Politics in Israel 187 Israel Faces the Ultra-Orthodox Challenge: Why Now, and What Next? 189 Women of the Wall: Toward Compromise or Continued Conflict 203 1 Foreword JPPI’s 2012-13 Annual Assessment of the Situation Diaspora organizations launch an education and Dynamics of the Jewish People shows a process and prepare Diaspora Jews for the possible deepening of the dilemmas and challenges implications of these troubling developments in confronting the State of Israel and the Jewish the region. people globally we described last year. On one As part of JPPI’s ongoing work on developing hand, the turbulence in the Middle East has and refining systematic indicators of trends increased, and makes clear that Israel stands as an affecting the Jewish people, last year’s Annual island of stability and democracy in the region. But Assessment introduced a dashboard of gauges on the other, a confluence of rapid developments that offer measures of Jewish well-being across in the region – Iran’s march toward nuclearization; five key dimensions: geopolitical developments, the civil war and implosion in Syria, as well as the demography, identity formation and expression, increasing spillover to Iraq and Lebanon, and the intra and inter-community bonds, and material increasingly sectarian nature of the broader conflict resources. They have been updated in this within the Muslim world; the rise of political Islam Assessment to show – with an accompanying in Egypt and Tunisia; and the secular protests in analysis – how each of the five dimensions has Turkey, all paint a volatile and fragile picture. been affected by developments in the last year. These challenges do no simply have implications On the geopolitical front, 21 dilemmas are laid for the region; they also threaten the security of out in this Assessment that demand a deep Jews worldwide. Therefore, JPPI recommends that strategic approach and require careful attention. any Israeli decision making process related to these In other areas such as identity and identification, issues takes into consideration, in a structured community bonds, demography, and economics, manner, the implications of any decision for we continue to detect slight improvement.This communities in the Diaspora, as well as relations is the result of a very committed group of Jewish with the U.S. government, Israel’s ally. At the same executive leaders and the efforts they have made time, it is necessary that local and national Jewish over the last decade. THE JEWISH PEOPLE POLICY INSTITUTE 5 But, this leadership group, supported by and operational approaches for combating dedicated lay leaders old enough to have de-legitimization, based on the conclusions experienced the immediate aftermath of the and recommendations of the various Shoah, the first years of national revival, and bodies dealing with this issue, coordinating the victory of 1967, necessarily will make way efforts within the Israeli government and for a generational transition. This creates a very with Diaspora leadership, and working to serious challenge to identify and prepare the new implement them. leadership group that needs to steer the Jewish 2. Intermarriage – and its attendant issues of people toward a new horizon of prosperity and conversion, outreach to non-Jewish family peace. Vision is certainly required, but so is a members, and child rearing – continues to practical approach in the arenas of major Jewish require attention. It presses on how we envision organizations and federations, government, future Jewish life and and the continuity of politics and global affairs. Jewish identity. This assessment includes a The assessment covers a number of other events new, original study of this phenomenon in and issues: connection with the 30th anniversary of the 1. The phenomenon of
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