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Yuval Cahan, a husband and father of four, was born and raised in Jerusalem. The grandson of a Holocaust survivor—one of the famous eight Jews smuggled from Austria into Finland—and Iranian refugees to India, Cahan grew up with a profound awareness of the value of a sovereign Jewish state. He holds a doctorate in Israeli Thought from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and, before accepting his current position as director of the Tel-Aviv Leadership Academy, taught and worked for a wide range of educational and research institutions throughout Israel, including the Hartman High School for Boys and the Israel Democracy Institute.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing Israeli society today?
In a word: “Hatikva.” Israelis across the religious and political spectrum no longer sing Israel’s national anthem, whether because they don’t identify with its Zionist message or can’t justify it on moral or intellectual grounds. As a result, the anti-Zionist movement doesn’t need to win over more adherents: The lack of interest in and commitment to the idea of a Jewish national project among a growing majority of Israelis will itself prove the greatest threat to the state’s survival.
How is the Tel-Aviv Leadership Academy trying to address this problem?
At our academy, we strive to nurture a positive, optimistic view of both Zionism and leadership. We show students that the former can be a force for unity among the disparate parts of Israeli society, and not just a cause of division. Likewise, we encourage them to believe that a combination of vision, determination, and dedication really can cut through a national discourse mired in feelings of passivity and hopelessness.
That’s a lofty goal for one to two-year program of study. How can eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds be expected to carry this message through the next decade of their development?
Actually, Israeli history provides the best answer to that question: The founding of educational institutions. The leading members of Brit Shalom, for example, the radical Jewish “universalist” movement of the 1920s and early 1930s, played a key part in establishing the Hebrew University, while the far-right movement Gush Emunim founded a system of yeshivot that spread the ideology of “Greater Israel” after the 1967 war. Both these institutions were designed to inculcate a system of beliefs and values over an extended period of time, and ensure new generations of disciples.
To advance the cause of a Jewish and democratic state among today’s Israeli youth—the cause we at the Tel-Aviv academy seek to advance—we clearly can’t suffice with a mere one- to two-year program of study. Instead, we need to leverage the leadership-academy model into something greater and more sustained: An educational institution. And that’s something the participants of the Bnei Moshe program hope to accomplish during our time together.
Other than the opportunity to share ideas and objectives with other leadership-academy directors, what about the Bnei Moshe program have you found most meaningful?
Without question, the introduction to the Shalem Center’s approach to integrating Jewish and Western sources. Shalem is the first institution I’ve come across that outlines a Zionist worldview based not (or not only) on the writings of Jewish thinkers, but also on key Western philosophical texts. This is a serious, informed Zionism, of the sort that we, too, strive to impart to our students at the academy.
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