Caroline Glick: American Jewish community must stand up for Pollard
On Sunday, the board of Swarthmore College’s Hillel unanimously agreed to defy guidelines set by the national Hillel organization barring campus Hillel’s from hosting or otherwise giving assistance to anti-Zionist organizations. Rejecting Hillel’s positions, the Swarthmore Hillel board declared, “We do not believe it is the true face of young American Jews.”Read the whole thing.
Congratulations for the board’s decision streamed in from Jewish leftist groups at Harvard and other institutions.
Hillel’s national organization did not take Swarthmore’s Hillel board’s decision lying down. Tuesday, Hillel’s new president and CEO Eric Fingerhut informed the Swarthmore branch that it cannot continue to refer to itself as Hillel if it goes forward with its resolution rejecting the organization’s guidelines.
Fingerhut’s swift rebuke and warning to the Swarthmore branch must be applauded. Both in passing the guidelines and in standing up for them, Hillel has made clear that being a Jewish group claiming to speak for Jews has to mean something.
Zionism is the Jewish national liberation movement, and Israel is the national home of the Jewish people. To be an anti-Zionist is to reject the right of the Jewish people to freedom. To be anti-Israel is to be anti-Jewish. And a Jewish group cannot support an anti-Jewish group without losing its meaning, and betraying the Jewish people.
Likewise, the American Jewish community cannot remain a community in any meaningful sense of the word if it does not defend Jewish rights.
And this brings us back to Jonathan Pollard, in failing health, in his 28th year in prison. Committed American Jews, among them are many Jewish leaders that have been grappling since Pew published its findings in October, with the question of how to inspire the community to revitalize itself and recommit itself to Jewish continuity and Jewish rights.
The answer may very well be: By standing up for Pollard and demanding his immediate release from prison.
Pollard’s plight can and should serve as a lightning rod for communal action because there is no clearer case of anti-Jewish discrimination by the US government than his continued imprisonment.
Pollard’s case is meaningful because it is hard. It isn’t easy to defend Pollard. He betrayed the US government. But the government’s disproportionate and unjust treatment of him owes entirely to the fact that he is an American Jew. Until he receives justice, no American Jew can be certain that his or her constitutional right to equal protection under the law will be respected. Defending Pollard means defending Jewish rights. And defending Jewish rights also involves communal identification in a deep and significant way.
Moreover, at a time when increasing numbers of assimilated American Jews disassociate with Israel, standing up for Pollard will relink the community with Israel in a profound and meaningful way.
Finally, Pollard’s case is a good case to take up as a communal cause because there is every reason to believe that such communal action can succeed. As Esther Pollard wrote in The Jerusalem Post this week, during the White House Hanukka party, Obama said that clemency for Pollard is “under consideration.”
It seems like the only people connected to Pollard who have not come out in favor of his release are the spineless 'American Jewish leaders.' It's a pity that they will likely ignore Glick's missive.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Caroline Glick, Jonathan Pollard
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:18 PM
2 Comments:
You mean the American Jewish community that was deafeningly silent during the Shoah?
You have to understand that American Jews care only about Liberal causes. Israel, Pollard, etc... Are NOT liberal causes.
Heck they would vote for Hitler if he had a D after his name.
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