From the Office of the Prime Minister

Jerusalem, 25 Nissan, 5768
April 30, 2008

To:
Zeev Bielski
Chairman of the Executive
The Jewish Agency for Israel
Jerusalem 91000

Greetings and Salutations,

I take pleasure in congratulating the Jewish Agency upon winning the Israel Prize for a lifetime's project, on this the 60th year of Israel’s independence.

Generally when we speak of a “lifetime project”, we refer to the life of this person or the next – but when the prize is awarded to the Jewish Agency, we are dealing with the lifetime project of every one of us, the lifetime project of the Jewish people that has returned to its country.

One hardly needs to recall the path taken by the Jewish Agency.  It started from the moment that it served as the de facto government of the Jewish community in Israel and the state in the making, when the Agency represented the Jewish community, saw to its development and security, and promoted aliyah. Currently the Jewish Agency constitutes a hub for the Jewish partnership of world Jewry that is centered in Israel. This fundamentally is the partnership and mutual responsibility of the entire Jewish people that has sustained the existence of our people throughout every generation.

The award of the Israel prize to the Jewish Agency in our 60th year of independence, can express, if only minutely our thanks and esteem for the Jewish Agency, its leaders and workers, in the past and present, as well to as to the Jewish communities in the Diaspora who cooperates with it – for their contribution to establishing the state, consolidating it, absorbing aliyah, and developing the spheres of life in Israel.

I extend best wishes to the Jewish Agency and those who work with it, for continued fruitful prolific and successful activity on behalf of the Jewish people's future and the future of its country.

With best greetings,

Ehud Olmert