Maltese Jewish Community President and former Chief Rabbi Reuven Ohayon participated in the 16th World Conference for Rabbis and Leaders of Jewish Diaspora Communities of the World Zionist Organization's Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora, where about 150 leaders from 40 countries convened for 3 days of discussions on religion and state, anti-Semitism, the modern family, and more.
Rabbi Ohayon told Arutz Sheva: "Modernism is taking ground, the important thing it to attract the youth especially of the community, to Judaism."
Elaborating, the Rabbi continued: "The first thing is that the family unit is very important, and the parents are an example to the children, and to keep them Jewish and teach them about Torah and mitzvot, and to teach them about tzedaka, and to strengthen the character traits and the values in the Jewish family, then you can take the challenge of the outside world."
Regarding violence against Jews and whether worldwide trends have affected his own community, Rabbi Ohayon says "Look, we live in peace with our neighbors and we have a lot of respect because there are other minority communities on the island, and we live in peace and don't make big noise, we have good relationship with the government; if we feel we have a challenge or anything else, we contact the authorities, we even have contacted the Prime Minister and even with the President of Malta, and we always get the backup that we need."
Regarding aliyah, the Rabbi says: "We talk a lot about aliyah; Eretz Yisrael is the land of the Jewish People. Our aspiration is always to settle here. There are big challenges, it's not an easy country to live in, it's a very expensive country, even to buy property, but we talk a lot about it because Eretz Yisrael is the center of the whole Torah."