Israel's Ambassador to the United Statesl, Michael Oren. Photo: wiki commons.

The divide separating American and Israeli Jews is growing, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said on Sunday, adding that the unity of the Jewish people should be a primary concern for all Jews.

Speaking at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs Plenum in Detroit on Sunday, Oren discussed his three children—Yoav, Lia and Noam—and described himself as an Israeli father shocked that American Jews would consider boycotting Israel while his own children were looking for bomb shelters and managing recruits in the Israel Defense Forces.

“There are American Jewish concerns such as ensuring Jewish continuity, maintaining Jewish institutions, affording a Jewish education. All are genuinely serious concerns, and not just for American Jewish kids,” Oren told the audience in Detroit, made up of leaders from all walks of Jewish life. “I was shocked, then, that on the very day that I spoke with my kids about their concerns in Israel, some American Jews were discussing a call to boycott products made by Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”