The World Mizrachi movement’s Religious Zionist Shlichut Center held a Shlichut Fair ahead of next year's mission in the Diaspora, to which no less than 1,500 people registered.
“The Shlichut Center brings together 11 different organizations which are looking for shlichim (emissaries -ed.), and each one of them has a different focus,” explained Rabbi Doron Perez, Chief Executive of World Mizrachi, in an interview with Israel National News. “Some are youth movements, some are formal education, some are informal education, and the uniqueness is 11 organizations coming together.”
Rabbi Hillel Van Leeuwen, Head of World Mizrachi Shlichut Center, added, “Amazing atmosphere. It warms the heart to see so many people coming, willing to leave Israel and leave their familiar environment and go out for a year or more to connect to our brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. It’s really amazing that so many Israelis, it’s on their agenda now. They see, and they hear, and they think about our brothers and sisters overseas and their hearts are with them.”
“Shlichut is an exceptional opportunity,” said Rabbi Danny Mirvis, Deputy CEO of World Mizrachi, “for an individual, or for a family, to do something really meaningful, to build a bridge between Israel and the Diaspora. You grow as an individual yourself when you’re out on Shlichut and there’s so much you can give and so much you can receive in return as well.”
The Shlichim of Religious Zionism, according to Rabbi Perez, have “a real sense of mission. One thing that the Religious Zionist world is trying to emphasize is that, first and foremost, it’s about the mission. There’s a sense that they’re there because of a mission to serve.”
Despite the global world we currently live in, he stressed that it is still important for the emissaries to actually go abroad.
“I think anybody who’s involved in the Internet generation knows that the more there is the virtual connection, the more there’s a need for an interpersonal connection. Nothing can ever come in place of interpersonal connection,” said Rabbi Perez. “I think at the end of the day, that personal connection, nothing can be in place of it.”