Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) A major meeting of the Jewish Agency is set for Sunday. The crowd will be addressed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and Natan Scharansky, the new chairman of the board of the Jewish Agency, will address the group for the first time. Discussions at the meeting will include the fate of Jewish education in the Diaspora, development of a a "new paradigm" relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, efforts to increase aliyah, and methods of helping to develop Israeli society.

When Natan Sharansky stepped into Condoleezza Rice's West Wing office at 11:15 last Thursday morning, he had no idea the national security advisor would soon be named the next secretary of state. He was just glad to see her holding a copy of his newly published book, The Case for Democracy. "I'm already half-way through your book," Rice said. "Do you know why I'm reading it?" Sharansky, a self-effacing man who spent nine years in KGB prisons (often in solitary confinement) before becoming the first political prisoner released by Mikhail Gorbachev, hoped it had to do with his brilliant analysis...