PM confirms he will speak via satellite to Jewish Federation gathering

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly in Los Angeles via satellite, his office confirmed Monday.

He is expected to be interviewed live during the General Assembly’s closing plenary on November 14.

President Reuven Rivlin is scheduled to fly to Los Angeles address the assembly — one of the key events of organized US Jewry — in what his office said will be his first major speech to Diaspora Jewry outside Israel.

Last week, the Haaretz newspaper reported that Netanyahu “won’t address” the high-profile gathering. The paper interpreted the prime minister’s supposed absence as a “sign of the growing rift between the Israeli government and Diaspora Jewry.”

Netanyahu has rarely missed an opportunity to address the prestigious annual confab, either in person or via satellite.

During the interview, Netanyahu may be confronted by US Jews over the ongoing disputes between the government in Jerusalem and Diaspora Jewry over the Western Wall egalitarian prayer plaza and conversion to Judaism is ongoing.

The Netanyahu government approved a plan in January 2016 to construct an official separate, permanent, pluralistic prayer area at Robinson’s Arch adjacent to the main Western Wall prayer area, in a compromise reached after years of negotiations between liberal Israeli and American Jewish groups and Israeli authorities. It would give non-Orthodox Jewish leaders a joint role in the oversight of the pluralistic site. Currently, a temporary prayer facility exists there.

In June, after some ultra-Orthodox websites started to criticize the agreement, the cabinet voted to suspend part of it, most notably the plan to build a common entrance, which was seen as a form of recognizing non-Orthodox streams of Judaism.

In addition, the government has considered legislation to consolidate power over conversions performed in Israel under the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.

As reported by The Times of Israel, the Jewish Agency did not reach out to Netanyahu ahead of its Board of Governor meeting this week in Jerusalem, neither asking him to address the delegates nor to meet privately with the organization’s top leadership.