Indicating a possible shift in government policy toward “emerging” Jewish communities around the world, Israel’s Ministry of the Diaspora has created a new committee to present recommendations on what it defines as “groups with ties to the Jewish people.” 

TALMA, the Israel Program for Excellence in English, is in its second year. This year the program brought 80 teachers from the United States for a summer English program in umpteen public schools across four Israeli municipalities. [...] For Israeli children, the program seeks to close social gaps by advancing their English-language abilities, regardless of financial background or religious affiliation.

"In Iran today, freedom of the press remains a dream," Cohler-Esses writes. "But freedom of tongue has been set loose. I was repeatedly struck by the willingness of Iranians to offer sharp, even withering criticisms of their government on the record, readiness sometimes even to be filmed doing so."

In its short history of two-thirds of a century, the State of Israel has fought many wars, some of them against overwhelming odds, and has won them all. Right now, however, it is badly losing a war fought with words, not bullets, but the effect of which can be just as devastating for Israel’s future. This is, of course, the public diplomacy war.