Concerned that Jews could become seriously outnumbered in both the Negev and the Galilee by non-Jews, the Jewish Agency for Israel has embarked on a new campaign to bring 250,000 immigrants to the Galilee and 150,000 in the Negev, the organization's treasurer, Shai Hermesh, said last week in San Diego.
 

Hermesh, the second-ranking official of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said the Galilee and the Negev comprise more than 50 percent of Israel. However, less than 50 percent of the Galilee's population is Jewish, he said, while about 35 percent of the Negev's population is non-Jewish. "We have the feeling that if we do not put an emphasis on populating these two areas, and investing more and more into infrastructure, enriching the level of education and supporting community activity, cultural activity and other welfare services, we will in a few years lose the Negev and the Galilee," Hermesh told Heritage on Monday, Nov. 25, during a round of visits with Jewish communal leaders in San Diego.

Shai Hermesh

Besides building up Jewish communities in Israel, Hermesh said, the Jewish Agency in partnership with the Diaspora also should help develop the communities of non-Jewish peoples like the Druze and the Bedouins who are loyal to Israel.

Having recently given up his position as mayor of the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council, a group of 11 communities in the northern Negev, Kfar Aza kibbutznik Hermesh was definite about what needs to be done to encourage settlement in the Negev. He therefore tended to emphasize the Negev rather than the Galilee in an interview conducted last week.

"The World Zionist Organization needs to start again what it did 50 years ago and build new communities in the Negev," he said. "There is a plan now for an additional 15 new communities within the Green Line (pre-1967 Israel). Some of them are going to be located to the south of Hebron, on the beginning of the mountains between Be'ersheva and Hebron. Some will be in the area of Nitzana, which (Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud) Barak once offered to trade with the Arabs for territories in the West Bank."

Having helped to fashion the partnership between San Diego's United Jewish Federation and his own region of Sha'ar Hanegev, Hermesh proposed that Jewish communities throughout the Diaspora work in partnership with different settlements in the Negev, with "every one of you responsible for his own community."

Asked if he wanted other Diaspora communities to directly fund partnership cities in Israel and participate in their governance - as San Diego does with the student village of Ibim, which neighbors the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council -Hermesh said in most instances it would be better to work through his Jewish Agency, because most communities do not have the same level of expertise as was developed through the Ibim-San Diego experiment.

Residents of the new communities probably will be drawn from the ranks of new immigrants, such as those arriving regularly from the former Soviet Union and Argentina, as well as from other parts of Israel, Hermesh said.

Many people who live in the crowded coastal corridor of Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa also might be drawn to the Negev or to the Galilee given the right incentives, Hermesh said.
Under JAFI's umbrella, focuses should be on developing business enterprises and regional colleges in new communities of the Negev, he said. 

"We know an area will develop if there is higher education," he said. "Another trigger can be if business enterprises can be located in the Negev. I am talking about the kind of occupations that will give a good salary for a young person to support his family." 

To provide incentives for such investment, he said, he favors decreasing the percentage of income tax in those areas.

Asked if another possible source of population might be Jews now living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, if peace negotiations ever lead to their settlements being turned over to the Palestinians, Hermesh replied cryptically: "You said that; I didn't."

The carefulness with which Hermesh worded his reply was not suprising, given the way the former Sha'ar Hanegev mayor suddenly was elevated to JAFI's top leadership. Only last June, his predecessor, Chaim Chesler, had appeared certain for reelection to a five-year term as JAFI's treasurer.

However, Chesler set off a furor at the 34th World Zionist Congress when, defending the immigration to Israel of Russians whose Jewish ancestry had been called into question, he said he prefers someone who might not be a Jew by Halacha "to someone who prays three times a day but stays in Brooklyn."

Not long afterward, the board of governors of the Jewish Agency decided to oust Chesler. The composition of the Jewish Agency is delicately balanced between representatives of Israel and the Diaspora, with non-Israeli Jews represented by the World Zionist Organization.

Hermesh, who had been a candidate for treasurer previously - only to see former Prime Minister Ehud Barak give the nod to Chesler - was recommended as Chesler's successor by Diaspora representatives, particularly prominent members of Jewish Federations, including San Diego. Hermesh had worked closely with the Federations of New York, Baltimore and Metropolitan New Jersey in his tenure as mayor of Sha'ar Hanegev and as board chairman of nearby Sapir College.

Hermesh's political fortunes also were aided by the facts that he is a member of the Labor party and also a neighbor and friend of Prime Minister (and Likud leader) Ariel Sharon.
The Jewish Agency treasurer was circumspect when asked how great a role Christian organizations are playing in Israel's efforts to promote immigration and settlement.

He said he was aware of the recent controversy that had been occasioned in San Diego by the Mission Valley Christian Fellowship's sponsorship of a dinner to contribute $500,000 to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. He described relations between Israel and evangelical Christians as a "complicated question."

"We (Israel) need any support that can be given; we are in an emergency situation," he said. "We need financial and political support; every finger, every hand."

At the same time, he said, "I know the sensitivity in the Jewish community to what are the final ideas of the Christians" concerning their theological belief that the End of Days will occur after Jews have been resettled in Israel. "You have to find a mid-way to make a connection without making a provocation," he said.

From the standpoint of the Jewish Agency, he added, "the first priority must be Jews. ... When any Israeli representative comes to the United States - a mayor, a high-ranking officer, anyone from the Jewish Agency - he has to first of all pay attention to the Jews. There can't be a situation that someone from Israel doesn't pay attention to the Jews; Jews deserve the main attention." 
At the same time, he said, "We are being overpowered on CNN. Politically, we need everyone who can support us. The real battle Israel is in is for public opinion, and 97 percent of the people in the United States are non-Jews."