Labels: American Jewish indifference to Israel, American Jewish leadership, American Jewish support for Israel, American Jews, David Friedman, Donald Trump, liberal Jews
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:12 PM
0 comments
In blaming Israeli policy for the fact that on many U.S. campuses, the classmates of Jewish students “shun them for identifying with Israel at all,” perhaps American Jewish leaders are overlooking the failures at home, particularly among liberal progressive diaspora Jewish leaders. Many Jewish students are stuck entirely in an American bubble, with no understanding of the centrality of Jewish self-determination (i.e., Zionism) to our survival as a people. So how can they even begin to understand Israel, let alone give us advice?
For two decades, too many American Jews have ignored or downplayed the gratuitous post-colonial Israel-bashing from the supposedly liberal bastions such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and which are echoed in the mainstream media. When Israeli soldiers are repeatedly and falsely accused of being child murderers and war criminals, where is the outrage from the mainstream American Jewish establishment? A couple of years ago, the federations finally established a fund to fight boycotts, but this group is also largely invisible and very timid.
Instead, fringe Israeli voices that polarize and demonize our society under the façade of human rights, democracy and peace are given legitimacy and resources in America, and the Jewish leadership is silent or in some cases complicit. Much of the BDS war — and make no mistake, the goal is the elimination of Israel — involves bogus peace NGOs that received their initial funds and public relations boost via U.S.-based Jewish groups who thought they knew better than the Israeli public. Such groups include the Coalition of Women for Peace, the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions, Breaking the Silence, Jewish Voice for Peace, and many others.
And now, when the Israeli public finally demands an effective response to the NGOs that lead to this demonization, the American Jewish leadership condemns Israel, repeating liberal pieties about free speech, but without addressing the real issues. In all of the criticisms of the proposed new NGO funding transparency laws, I have yet to see any serious understanding of the threat or alternative strategies. On this, as on so many issues, criticizing Israel from a distance is far too easy.
When crying out for an Israeli peace plan, “any plan,” your interlocutor makes it seem so simple. Like most Israelis, I also hope for a peace plan, but not any plan, and certainly not one that will bring us yet another disaster when it fails. The reality that I see not far from the windows in my Jerusalem home includes Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Assad, Iran and others. Our only “peace partners,” led by Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group, are corrupt and stuck in the rejectionist dead-end of 1948. So no, “any plan” that helps Israel’s PR among liberal students, but makes our security situation even worse, is not better than the status quo.
On this and many other issues, I understand why American Jewish leaders want us in Israel to take risks, and probably think that this is for our own good. But we do not see many American Jewish leaders taking many risks in terms of criticizing President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry when they put all of the blame and responsibility on Israel, and patronizingly give the Palestinians a free pass. And where are your tough decisions to exclude BDS groups and Israel bashers from the big “Jewish tent?”
So it is not only “that Israel’s leadership is moving in a direction at odds with the next generation of Americans,” but that America’s liberal Jewish leadership is moving in a direction at odds with Israel and our realities.Indeed.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, American Jewish support for Israel, American Jews, Breaking the Silence, Coalition of Women for Peace, Gerald Steinberg, Jewish Voice for Peace, liberal Jews
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:42 AM
2 comments
He told the group that a face-to-face meeting at the White House would probably end with Mr. Netanyahu publicly venting his complaints about the president’s policies, particularly his efforts to forge a nuclear agreement with Iran, according to people familiar with the private meeting who would provide details about it only on the condition of anonymity.
So for now, the president said, he would speak with the prime minister over the telephone, and an Oval Office invitation would wait until after the June 30 deadline for negotiating the details of the Iran deal.
...
Haaretz adds:Instead, the White House is engaged in an aggressive effort to assuage the concerns of American Jewish groups and pro-Israel members of Congress over the nuclear agreement with Iran, and to limit the potential political fallout for Democrats of what has become a bitter rift in the American and Israeli relationship.
Obama spent an hour with leaders of various major Jewish organizations during the day's first meeting, described by the Washington Post as "positive" and "very moving."
Among the attendes were representatives from civil defense groups like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, umbrella groups like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America, pro-Israel groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and J Street, and the major religious streams.
One of the meeting's attendees told the Post that the president was "heartfelt about his connection to Israel."
Another said that “the president talked about how deeply he feels about Israel and the Jewish people and anti-Semitism. It was not just about Iran. It was much, much deeper in terms of the president sharing with us how he felt."The New York Times article, the Haaretz article and the Washington Post article cited by Haaretz strike me as White House spin of this meeting, part of which is an attempt to make it sound less bad than it was by mixing it up with this meeting.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:23 PM
2 comments
Benjamin Netanyahu carpet-bombed the Sunday chat shows again, spouting the kind of invective designed to scare the eyebrows off anchormen, calling the Iranian framework agreement "a bad deal" and refusing to say that he "trusts" President Obama to make a good one.
He has since issued a laundry list of improvements designed to "ratchet up the pressure" and make the accord "more reasonable." Some are legitimate, such as defining what "anytime, anywhere inspections" entail - because while the inspection regime of Iran's nuclear fuel supply chain will endure for 25 years, it hasn't been specified what happens if Iran blocks a site. But they have three months to work that out.
Other suggestions, however, are not rooted in reality - such as the demand that Iran "cease all nuclear research and development activity," which ignores its right to use energy for civilian purposes, with assurances that keep it exclusively peaceful.
Such suggestions are unrealistic and destroy Netanyahu's credibility, as only he can make something as sober as nuclear war sound transparently phony: With 80 to 200 nukes, Israel faces an existential obliteration from a country with zero? Yes, Iran is run by theocratic mad men who make war throughout the region. But the "Iranian bomb" feels more like election pretext than fact, when you listen to Netanyahu's rhetoric.
You don't have to believe the 2007 findings of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, which unequivocally stated that "Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program" in 2003. And you don't have to read the memoirs of George W. Bush, who wrote, "How could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?"
But if the opposite were the case - even if Netanyahu truly believed that Iran has a robust, burgeoning nuclear arms program - why would he assume that more sanctions would satisfy his zero-tolerance aims? How is it that years of sanctions have done so little to curtail it, exactly?It actually gets worse and the attack becomes more personal....
The Ledger editorial assailing the credibility of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu itself lacks credibility by minimizing the nuclear threat of a proven untrustworthy Iran and omitting reference to the continuing calls for Israel’s destruction from the highest levels of Iran’s government. The latter is particularly noteworthy - the calls are the clearest expression of Iran’s objectives as to the future of Israel’s statehood and the security of its citizenry, both of which the Prime Minister and Israelis has uppermost in mind as they view the Iranian threat and the negotiations.So let's hear it for one (really two) of the good guys among the American Jewish leadership. If I had the time before the Holiday begins again, I would Fisk the entire editorial for you. There's just so much wrong here.
The editorial cites the author’s “tedium” with respect to the Prime Minister’s responses to the negotiations, but, if true, it is dwarfed compared to the overwhelming weariness of Israel citizens menaced not only by Arab violence at home and from enemies on their borders, but also the menacing expressions of destruction from Iran, the number one sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East.
The editorial’s credibility comes into further question with a gratuitous and totally inaccurate reference to “Israel apartheid in the Occupied Territories.” The fact is that the Palestinians govern themselves, the victims of South African apartheid did not; and Israelis just elected 13 Arabs to the Israeli Knesset.
Mark S. Levenson, President
Jacob Toporek, Executive Director
NJ State Association of Jewish Federations
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Barack Hussein Obama, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, P 5+1
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:23 PM
2 comments
Since writing an article in the Observer urging the New York Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) and the UJA-Federation to refuse the New Israel Fund (NIF) participation to the annual “Celebrate Israel Parade,” I have been inundated with calls and e-mails from people supporting – and attacking – my position.
So much panic has been caused that Israel’s Former Ambassador Danny Ayalon – who was aware of and supported my position before I wrote of it – received calls in the last 48 hours from Michael Miller, the head of the JCRC; Eric Goldstein, President of UJA; and Jerry Levin, UJA’s past President pressuring him to silence the voices condemning the NIF. They have a Monday meeting set to discuss this issue.
Clearly, mass concern remains over the parade’s decision on allowing the the participation of the extremist New Israel Fund (NIF), a group that hurts the Jewish State, funds legal efforts that seek to place the rights of the terrorists over victims who were killed while praying in Jerusalem, and has called Israel “racist” and “murderous.”
In response to my op-ed, the JCRC crafted a statement, which reads “JCRC-NY has for years required that all Parade groups must identify with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. This year, JCRC-NY, for clarification purposes, added a new rule that ‘all groups must oppose, not fund, nor advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel, which seeks to delegitimize the State of Israel by not recognizing it as a Jewish state.”
However the JCRC will not address the fact that on NIF’s own website the group clearly supports BDS. Even though the NIF states that it ” will not fund global BDS activities against Israel” a paragraph later it apologizes for exactly those activities, stating “NIF will thus not exclude support for organizations that discourage the purchase of goods or use of services from settlements.”
...
Instead of owning up to their mistake, the JCRC is digging its heels in and calling in favors to quiet pressure. Wealthy donors and Jewish leaders have called on former Israeli Ambassador Danny Ayalon to try and stop those of us nay-sayers. Ayalon is active against NIF, yet they have summoned him for a Monday meeting to appeal to his sense of the “importance of the parade.”
This is not an issue of the right versus the left; it is an issue of the right versus the wrong.
In private appeals, the most senior executives from these Jewish organizations, whom I know and like personally, talk about their families in Israel, their love for Israel, and of course, how long and hard they have worked for the Jewish people. They had a prominent JCRC board member and professional colleague ask me to stop writing. While many of these people tell me privately they abhor NIF, they will not speak out publicly.The Talmud says that every generation gets the leadership that it deserves - for better or for worse. Clearly, we have some soul-searching to do about why we have merited such gutless 'Jewish leaders.'
Labels: American Jewish leadership, BDS, Danny Ayalon, JCC Watch, Manhattan JCC, New York City, Salute to Israel Day Parade
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:51 PM
2 comments
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a club new to Occidental this year, collaborated with Hillel and J Street last Wednesday to co-host a candlelight vigil mourning the lives lost in the most recent Gaza-Israel conflict. Approximately 30 members of the Occidental community gathered in the middle of the Quad in remembrance of those killed, and also in a stand of solidarity.
The Gaza-Israel war has left many like-minded students shaken and questioning the cyclical, systematic nature of the violence, prompting the idea for the on-campus vigil.
“Yes, we need to remember lives of the people that were lost, but [the vigil] is also to draw in people and give them the sense that this has got to stop,” Beebe Sanders (senior) said.
Testimonials read aloud at the vigil gave the gathering a closer view of the horrors that have become Israelis’ and Palestinians’ reality. One such account was from the perspective of a father, who witnessed the bombing of his house while his children were inside.
“Our main goals were that people walk away with a sense of togetherness, with a sense that as Americans, as all people, we have some investment in this conflict,” J Street Co-Chair Ben Poor (senior) said. “I hope people felt that they had a chance to mourn and to reflect on the events of this summer as a campus community.”
The collaborative event served as an introduction to SJP, which was established by Sanders, seniors Janan Burni and Robert Rodriguez-Donoso and Yasmine Dabbah (sophomore). SJP is a national organization established in 2001 with more than 80 chapters, the purpose of which is to advocate for human rights and a peaceful resolution to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We wanted to start SJP because we felt there was a lack of voice for Palestine on issues such as human rights and advocating for an end to the occupation,” Sanders said.You American Jews keep blindly donating money to Federation to support this, okay? But at least call Hillel to register a protest!?!?!
Labels: American Jewish leadership, BDS, Hillel, J Street, J Street U, Jewish anti-Semitism, Jewish Federations of North America, pro-Israel pro-peace, Students for Justice in Palestine
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:13 PM
1 comments
But they emphasize that J Street was rejected not by the “Left or Right” or a “right-wing minority” but by the overwhelming voting consensus of the 50-member organization. Moreover, the sources say, J Street supporters were in a smaller minority than initially apparent because just two voting blocs controlled 8 of the 17 yes votes.Read the whole thing.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, J Street, pro-Israel pro-peace
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:33 PM
3 comments
Poritz (in Yiddish )was the ruler back in old eastern Europe who could make or break the lives of the Jews living in his shmate kingdom.There have been some voices in Israel this week - like the Dry Bones cartoon above - that hint at ulterior motives of US Secretary of State John FN Kerry in pursuing a 'two-state solution' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.'
The Jews developed a behavior that was all about pleasing the Poritz.
They did not know it but they were dhimmis just like their brothers in the Arab countries.
Sadly , this behavior was not fool proof and when the need for money or property or blood came up - the Jews got their pogrom.
The CZAR USED TO SEND THE KASAKS to burn houses and rape Jewish women so that their terrible poverty and anger over it will not make them do this to him.
Some Jews seem to suffer from the Poritz syndrome even though they really should not.
Describing the potential for expanded boycotts of Israel makes it more, not less, likely that the talks will not succeed; makes it more, not less, likely that Israel will be blamed if the talks fail; and more, not less, likely that boycotts will ensue. Your comments, irrespective of your intentions, will inevitably be seen by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists as an incentive not to reach an agreement; as an indicator that if things fall apart, Israel will be blamed; and as legitimizing boycott activity.
...
But the core of the conflict was and remains Palestinian unwillingness to accept Israel's legitimacy and permanence as a Jewish state. That is why the Palestinians rejected the 1947 partition, that is why they rejected recognizing Israel after the 1967 war, and that is why Israeli offers at Camp David in 2000 and Annapolis in 2008 were rejected or allowed to go unanswered. It is Palestinians who must hear the message that not only has their rejectionism been the major obstacle to peace, but it has also been the main source of their suffering and misery over the years. It is time for them to make the qualitative leap toward peace and acceptance of the legitimacy of the Jewish state.On Thursday, a group of Israeli rabbis calling themselves the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel, published a letter that accused Kerry of declaring war against God.
“Your incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang, amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe! For G-d awarded the entire Land of Israel to our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order that they bequeath it, as an everlasting inheritance, to their descendants, the Jewish people, until the end of all time,” the Rabbis wrote.On Thursday afternoon, the Rabbinical Council of America and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the two most prominent voices of modern Orthodox Jewry in the United States, blasted the aforementioned committee.
“If you continue on this destructive path, you will ensure your everlasting disgrace in Jewish history for bringing calamity upon the Jewish people,” the letter continued, invoking the specter “heavenly punishment for everyone involved.”
In a joint release, the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America, which together represent a large plurality of modern orthodox Jews in the United States, repudiated the nationalist Rabbis’ words, which they defined as “extreme and offensive rhetoric.”I'm not a big fan of people deciding for themselves that they know God's desires. Still, I have to wonder: Why did the OU and the RCA get involved? Are they afraid of what the Obama administration might do to the American (Orthodox) Jewish community if they remain silent? Is this another manifestation of the poritz syndrome?
The Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel seemed to “arrogate to themselves unusual insight into the desires of the Almighty,” the American Jewish groups noted mockingly.
While world Jewry and especially those living in Israel have “ serious concerns” regarding Kerry’s proposals, “such concerns must only be expressed with civility and on the substance of the issues, not degenerating into personal venom and threats,” the organizations asserted.
While OU and RCA have aired their own objections with the Obama administration, they stated, “we have found no reason to question their intentions in pursuing this effort.”
"The letter of the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel may represent the views of its signators; it does not represent ours."
Labels: Abe Foxman, ADL, American Jewish leadership, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Modern Orthodox, Orthodox Jews, poritz syndrome
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:21 AM
0 comments
Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said he had come to conclude—after years of thinking otherwise—that Pollard’s continued imprisonment does imply prejudice at work:
When the Jonathan Pollard affair surfaced 28 years ago, there were claims by some that the sentencing of Pollard, life imprisonment, was tinged with anti-Semitism. We at the Anti-Defamation League took that charge seriously, made our own investigation, and concluded there was no basis for such an accusation.
I bring that up now because as the years pass and the world has changed many times over, and with more and more prominent Americans, including individuals from the intelligence community, saying “enough already,” Pollard remains in prison.
Pleas for his parole are raised on a regular basis, but go unheeded. The whole thing at this late date makes no sense. There surely is no information that Pollard possesses after all these years that can be harmful to American interests. The fact that Pollard shared information with an ally—Israel—was no reason for him not to be punished. But after this long imprisonment, the fact that it was such a close ally who received his information should have influenced a positive response when the subject of parole arose.
I am not one to equate what Pollard did, to betray his country, to the recent revelations that the United States has been spying on top Israeli leaders. Here too, however, these revelations add further context to the absurdity of the ongoing vendetta against this one man.
Yes, I use that word because that’s what it seems like at this point. If it were only a vendetta against one individual it would be bad enough. But it has now become one against the American Jewish community.
In effect, the continuing imprisonment of this person long after he should have been paroled on humanitarian grounds can only be read as an effort to intimidate American Jews. And, it is an intimidation that can only be based on an anti-Semitic stereotype about the Jewish community, one that we have seen confirmed in our public opinion polls over the years, the belief that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country, the United States.
In other words, the underlying concept which fuels the ongoing Pollard incarceration is the notion that he is only the tip of the iceberg in the community. So Pollard stays in prison as a message to American Jews: don’t even think about doing what he did.
I come to this conclusion with much sorrow and, as noted, as someone who resisted efforts early on to connect the Pollard affair to anti-Semitism. It is harder and harder to do so any longer.I don't think Foxman could have written that even a year ago. And I don't think he has ever written anything truer. If only his fellow mainstream leaders - who were invited to but did not respond to Tablet's editorial calling for Pollard's release - would follow his lead.
Labels: Abe Foxman, American Jewish leadership, anti-Semitism, dual loyalty, Jonathan Pollard
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:23 PM
0 comments
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.”
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Caroline Glick, Jonathan Pollard
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:18 PM
2 comments
However, unlike your email, which invites discussion and is welcome, your resolution simply states that the students at Swarthmore Hillel “will host and partner with any speaker at the discretion of the board, regardless of Hillel International’s Israel guidelines.” This position is not acceptable.
Hillel’s Israel guidelines, which were developed carefully with a broad coalition of our organization’s stakeholders, state: “Hillel welcomes a diversity of student perspectives on Israel and strives to create an inclusive, pluralistic community where students can discuss matters of interest and/or concern about Israel and the Jewish people in a civil manner.” Hillel is also, as the guidelines state, “steadfastly committed to the support of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders as a member of the family of nations.”
In summary, while welcoming debate on the many important and difficult questions that Israel faces, a debate that is vigorous in Israel as well, Hillel International does draw a line. That line is as follows: “Hillel will not partner with, house or host organizations, groups or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice: Deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders; Delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel; Support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel; Exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility.”
I hope you will inform your colleagues on the Student Board of Swarthmore Hillel that Hillel International expects all campus organizations that use the Hillel name to adhere to these guidelines. No organization that uses the Hillel name may choose to do otherwise.
Your resolution further includes the statement: “All are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist, or non-Zionist.” This is simply not the case. Let me be very clear – “anti-Zionists” will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances.
Hillel recognizes, of course, that “organizations, groups or speakers that as a matter of policy or practice” violate these guidelines may well be welcomed on campus, according to the policies of the particular college or university. The Hillel on campus, however, may not partner with or host such groups or speakers. This is entirely within our discretion as an organization, and we have clearly stated our intention to make these important decisions to protect our values and our critically important mission. Just as the university decides who will teach classes, and what organizations it will allow on campus, so Hillel will decide who will lead discussions in programs it sponsors and with whom it will partner.
In one of your resolution’s clauses, you invoke “the values espoused by our namesake, Rabbi Hillel, who was famed for encouraging debate in contrast with Rabbi Shammai.” Rabbi Hillel was famed for his openness to others, and his leniency in legal interpretation to advance tikkun olam – “repairing the world.” This spirit is strong in today’s American Jewry, and it is strong in the work of Hillel on every campus. However, Rabbi Hillel is perhaps more famous for his saying in Pirkei Avot, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”Here's hoping that Fingerhut sticks to his guns. What a refreshing change for an American Jewish organization!
Labels: American Jewish leadership, anti-Zionism, BDS, Hillel, Jewish Voice for Peace, Swarthmore College
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:37 PM
0 comments
Press release: Swarthmore Hillel is an Open HillelThe way to show the hypocrisy of this policy is for a Neturei Karta group to apply for membership and see if they are accepted. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to happen.
Unanimously adopted by Swarthmore Hillel Student Board, December 8, 2013
Whereas Hillel International prohibits partnering with, hosting, or housing anyone who (a) denies the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders, (b) delegitimizes, demonizes, or applies a double standard to Israel, (c) supports boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel;
And whereas this policy has resulted in the barring of speakers from organizations such as Breaking the Silence and the Israeli Knesset from speaking at Hillels without censorship, and has resulted in Jewish Voice for Peace not being welcome under the Hillel umbrella;
And whereas this policy runs counter to the values espoused by our namesake, Rabbi Hillel, who was famed for encouraging debate in contrast with Rabbi Shammai;
And whereas Hillel, while purporting to support all Jewish Campus Life, presents a monolithic face pertaining to Zionism that does not accurately reflect the diverse opinions of young American Jews;
And whereas Hillel’s statement that Israel is a core element of Jewish life and a gateway to Jewish identification for students does not allow space for others who perceive it as irrelevant to their Judaism;
And whereas Hillel International’s Israel guidelines privilege only one perspective on Zionism, and make others unwelcome;
And whereas the goals of fostering a diverse community and supporting all Jewish life on campus cannot be met when Hillel International’s guidelines are in place;
Therefore be it resolved that Swarthmore Hillel declares itself to be an Open Hillel; an organization that supports Jewish life in all its forms; an organization that is a religious and cultural group whose purpose is not to advocate for one single political view, but rather to open up space that encourages dialogue within the diverse and pluralistic Jewish student body and the larger community at Swarthmore; an organization that will host and partner with any speaker at the discretion of the board, regardless of Hillel International’s Israel guidelines; and an organization that will always strive to be in keeping with the values of open debate and discourse espoused by Rabbi Hillel.
Contact: Joshua Wolfsun Swarthmore Hillel Communications Coordinator wolfj13@gmail.com 413-687-1809
Labels: American Jewish leadership, BDS, Breaking the Silence, Hillel, Jewish Federations of North America, Jewish Voice for Peace, Swarthmore College
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:03 AM
1 comments
An optimistic-sounding Kerry asked the Jewish leaders for their help in supporting the newly restarted talks, The Times of Israel learned, saying that he feared for Israel’s future if a peace deal is not reached.
Kerry told the fewer than two-dozen representatives of Jewish organizations that he really believes that both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas realize that there is a strategic imperative to act now. He noted that Israel faces the threat of diplomatic isolation and a demographic clock.
A number of the Jewish leaders pressed Kerry on Abbas’s upcoming address to the United Nations General Assembly. They expressed hope that Abbas would change the tone of his rhetoric during his speeches to the world body — a good-faith gesture to demonstrate outward Palestinian willingness to engage in peace talks. One observer noted that Kerry seemed receptive to the idea.
Other Jewish representatives pushed for Kerry to ask Abbas to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Of course, Kerry isn't the only one who thinks he knows what's good for Israel better than the country's leadership. So does the American 'Jewish leadership.'Kerry told the leaders that one of the lynchpins of the current peace process is the separation of Israel’s security assurances from the general negotiations, assurances he said would be guaranteed in a separate agreement with the US.
The Jewish leadership was a virtual who’s who of the American Jewish community, representing a broad political spectrum, including representatives from the Orthodox Union as well as J Street, and including leaders such as the Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman and the Conference of Presidents’ Malcolm Hoenlein.Actually, the only group I see there that's not on the left is the Orthodox Union. The groups identified with the Right - the World Zionist Organization and the National Council of Young Israel (for example) were apparently not invited.
This meeting was a soft sell for most attendees, without Kerry pressing them to take the message of support for peace talks home to their respective communities. The hard sell — a more organized push to market the peace talks to centrist US Jews — is anticipated to come later in August, in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah.Just what we needed....
Labels: Abu Mazen, American Jewish leadership, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, Middle East peace process
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:43 PM
4 comments
“Minister Naftali Bennett's remarks, rejecting outright the vision of two states for two peoples, are stunningly shortsighted,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Since he is a member of the current Israeli coalition government, it is important that his view be repudiated by the country's top leaders."
“Bennett contravenes the outlook of Prime Minister Netanyahu and contradicts the vision presented earlier this month to the AJC Global Forum by Minister Tzipi Livni, chief Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians,” Harris continued. "Livni stated clearly that a negotiated two-state settlement is the only way to assure that the State of Israel will remain both Jewish and democratic. That is a view we at AJC have long supported.”
"We are under no illusion about the difficulties of achieving a two-state accord," Harris concluded. "But Bennett's alternative scenario offers only the prospect of a dead-end strategy of endless conflict and growing isolation for Israel."Someone needs to remind the AJC that twice as many Israelis supported Bennett as supported Livni in the last elected, and that most Likud supporters (not to mention those of other, more right wing parties) likely agree with Bennett.
Labels: Abu Mazen, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish leadership, Binyamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, two-state solution, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:28 PM
4 comments
The letter, initiated by the Israel Policy Forum, came in the wake of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel last month. It called upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to work closely with US Secretary of State John Kerry to devise pragmatic initiatives, consistent with Israel’s security needs, which would represent Israel’s readiness to make painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace.Very good, but way too long in coming.
“The first and foremost responsibility of the government must be the security of the citizens and guaranteeing a safe future for Israel,” Elkin said in an interview with Ma’ariv.
“Pressure from overseas must not guide the prime minister in how he carefully administers the diplomatic process.”
Elkin, who lives in Kfar Eldad, a settlement in Gush Etzion, came out strongly against the two-state solution in the interview.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Binyamin Netanyahu, Leftist Jews, Zeev Elkin
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:44 PM
1 comments
B’nai B’rith International remains concerned with many aspects of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel’s responses to questions during his confirmation hearing for the position of secretary of defense. Since then, more questions have been raised about Hagel’s views on a number of important issues.Unfortunately, this all may be too little too late. The time to oppose Hagel was when he was nominated, but nearly all of the mainstream Jewish organizations were too busy falling into lockstep with the Obama administration.
During the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Hagel did not assuage our reservations on how he would approach such topics as terrorism, Iran and Israel. We urge all Senators, as they prepare to vote, to carefully review Hagel’s record and hearing responses to determine his qualifications for the post.
We are concerned that Hagel, unlike the vast majority of his Senate colleagues, underestimates the threat of the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Barack Hussein Obama, Chuck Hagel, United States Senate
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:27 PM
1 comments
Rafael Medoff publishes this astounding account by Rabbi Haskel Lookstein (if I recall correctly, the rabbi who taught Bill Clinton to say "Shalom, Chaver" after the Rabin assassination) of President Obama's meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders last week. A few days before the poll came out, a delegation of Orthodox Jewish leaders met with the president at the White House. In a memo to his congregants this week, Rabbi Dr. Haskel Lookstein of Manhattan’s Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue described the meeting.I disagree with Rabbi Lookstein's conclusions, although I find his account compelling and believable.
“When asked about the perception that Israel is being pressed on the peace process more than are the Palestinians,” Rabbi Lookstein wrote, “the President indicated his belief that both sides need to compromise and that he has pressured both sides. However, in truth, he only cited pressure on the Israelis with respect to stopping settlement activity. He indicated that all of the United States assistance to Israel on security issues is problematic for the Palestinians, but, of course, that doesn’t constitute pressure on them to do anything. The one thing the Palestinians have to be pressured to do is to sit down at the table and negotiate without preconditions. The President has not done this and he avoided giving a clear response to the question of how he is specifically pressuring the Palestinians.”
Although the president and his advisers had plenty of time to prepare for the meeting, and even though the meeting was, as Rabbi Lookstein put it, “carefully scripted,” President Obama “avoided giving a clear response” regarding pressuring the Palestinians. One would think he would have come up with at least one example, even if it was more rhetorical than substantive, to soothe the concerns of the Jewish delegation. No such luck.
Rabbi Lookstein, the author of Were We Our Brothers’ Keepers?, an important book on American Jewry’s response to the Holocaust, has a keen sense of history. He recalled, in his memo, how some prominent Jews with access to President Franklin Roosevelt hesitated “to ask the hard questions or raise the tough issues.”
In December 1942, after the US had verified that mass murder of Europe’s Jews was underway, Jewish leaders were granted half an hour with the president. He spent the first 23 minutes telling jokes and commenting on other subjects. Then FDR spoke in generalities about the Nazi genocide for a few moments. And then – one participant later wrote – he “pushed some secret button, and his adjutant appeared in the room” to usher the Jewish leaders out.
In his diary, Roosevelt’s vice president, Henry Wallace, wrote about an incident in March 1944, in which FDR met with Jewish leaders and “caused [them] to believe that he was in complete accord with them...” The very next day, Roosevelt boasted to his cabinet that he had told the Jewish leaders “where to get off” and had warned them that their agitation for Zionism was “going to be responsible for the killing of a hundred thousand people.” “Enraged Arabs” would retaliate by attacking Americans in the Middle East, FDR claimed.
“The President certainly is a waterman,” Wallace wrote. “He looks one direction and rows the other with the utmost skill.”
American Jews in the 1940s had no way to know President Roosevelt’s true feelings on these issues, and Jewish leaders were reluctant to speak up. “Thank God, we live in a very different world today,” Rabbi Lookstein wrote this week. Today’s Jewish leaders are much more willing than their predecessors to ask the president the difficult questions that need to be asked.
The Talmud in both Sotah and Sanhedrin says that in the times leading up to the Messiah's arrival, the generation's face will be like that of a dog. The (real) rabbis explain that when one walks a dog, the dog seems to run ahead, but constantly turns around to make sure that the 'master' is following. So is the dog leading the 'master' or is the 'master' leading the dog? In reality, the 'master' is leading the dog, even though the dog gives the illusion that the opposite is the case. The dog symbolizes the Jewish communal leadership; the 'master' symbolizes the Jewish public at large.God save us all.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Holocaust, rabbis
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:18 PM
4 comments
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has a piece that discusses why Chelsea Clinton (known in the television industry as the dork diva) would make a great promoter for 'Islamophobia.' The jump-off point for the post is Clinton's 'moderating' a March 14 event at the JCC of Manhattan, which featured useful idiot Marc Schneier and his good friend Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali. Here's part of that post.One weapon that has proven useful to the Industry is so-called "interfaith dialogue" involving Jewish and Islamic leaders. The Muslim participants tend to be Islamists, while their Jewish counterparts tend to be well-meaning "useful idiots" like Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has tried to establish a partnership with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which is rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood. All too often, the result is a debacle in which the liberal Jews pine for dialogue while the Islamists stonewall and repeat anti-Semitic slanders.Read the whole thing. Until now, I have largely ignored Schneier. He's been mentioned about six times previously on this blog. I didn't believe that anyone outside the Jewish community in the United States and those who follow it had ever heard of him, and like Mikey Lerner and Wacky Waskow, Schneier wasn't worth the time or the bandwidth to attack. Then Sunlight sent me these, which apparently come from the Hampton Synagogue's website.
And when Schneier (who heads a group called the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, or FFEU) and Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali joined Chelsea Clinton at the JCC March 14, things didn't go a whole lot better. Although it talks a lot about the virtues of diversity, the Islamophobia Industry portrays Muslim life in America in a bleak, one-dimensional way: as if Muslims here are little more than innocent victims of thuggish, bigoted non-Muslim gangs determined to punish them for 9/11 and subsequent jihadist actions.I was taught a long time ago in Journalism 101 that the job of a journalist is to report on the news – not to act as an advocate or partisan. NBC's special correspondent views things a lot differently, declaring it is "the responsibility of the media to help ameliorate Islamophobia."
And that's precisely what Chelsea tried to do, tossing one softball after another to Ali and Schneier, parroting misinformation of her own and failing to question whoppers from the imam and the rabbi. Schneier, for example, bragged about his collaboration with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons at FEU, but didn't get a single question from the moderator about Simmons' long history of sycophantic praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a notorious anti-Semite.
Nor did Chelsea seem well-informed about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy that heated up in 2010. She askedSchneier how "you think about trying to use the media to in many ways combat the media?" Chelsea suggested that Schneier might need to gear up for battle because "we saw such vitriolic statements covered widely in the media" with commentators using "terms that at best were insensitive to somewhere in the middle, or derogatory, and at worst were really dehumanizing." (She neglected to provide an example).
After Chelsea asked what the pair was doing to stop this, Schneier talked about his opposition to hearings on Islamist radicalization in the United States by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., and bragged about working with Islamist Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., in an effort to win the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Schneier received thunderous applause from the audience when he described such work as an example of "the genuine authenticity that is needed for this Muslim/Jewish reconciliation."
Neither Schneier nor Chelsea Clinton bothered to mention that this "authenticity" came at a heavy price: the release of more than 1,000 imprisoned terrorist operatives, including planners of grisly attacks targeting civilians.
It is clear to me, as I am sure it is to all of you, that hotshot politicos and the like show up at Bar Mitzva's to honor the father and not the 13-year old boy (I'm making a Bar Mitzva this summer, God willing, and if you're a hotshot politico and want to come, send me an email and I'll consider letting you know where it is). I'm looking at these blurbs and I am wondering what the heck is wrong with Israeli officialdom? Why do Ron Prosor and Ido Aharoni (what - Michael Oren couldn't make it?) have to show up for this Bar Mitzva? Why does Rabbi Metzger, like a schnorrer, fly halfway around the world hours after landing in Israel to honor someone who is thousands of miles away from his own worldview?Labels: American Jewish leadership, Marc Schneier, Rabbi Yona Metzger, Ron Prosor
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:35 PM
3 comments
Charles Jacobs wonders why none of America's 'Jewish leaders' have had anything to say about the Obama administration's embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood. It's a good question. It's been a persistent fantasy of Western diplomats that by governing - or even participating in elections - radicals are transformed into pragmatists. Facts show otherwise: Radicals and Islamists across the Middle East, as they vote or govern, have not lessened their virulent hatred of Jews, their antipathy toward democracy, or their horrid treatment of Christians, women and gays. As Professor Barry Rubin points out: The radical nationalist PLO - given money, guns and power - has not moderated; Hamas won an election in Gaza, yet still wants to commit genocide on Jews; Hezbollah won an election in Lebanon and has not moderated; Turkey's Islamists, now in power, adopted an anti-Western foreign policy that backs radical Islamists; and Egypt itself seems set to violently return its Christian minority to pre-colonial "dhimmi" serfdom. "Where," Rubin asks, "is the renunciation of past extremism, the reinterpretation of Islamic texts to justify a totally different worldview?"And what's going on in Boston is what's going on in elsewhere in the United States as well. Nearly all the American 'Jewish leadership' has disappeared.
The Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to moderate because its core doctrine is Islamic supremacy: Democracy is not in its DNA. Sayyid Qutb, the Brotherhood's chief ideologue, saw the collapse of the world's last Muslim empire in Turkey. He taught that Islamic civilization had crumbled because it had strayed from its original path. His solution - and the foundational principle of the MB - is a return to the flawless, unspoiled beliefs and practices of the Prophet Muhammad.
Since its founding in 1928, the Brotherhood has spawned practically all modern jihadist movements. Hamas is its branch in Palestine. The Muslim American Society- the organization that runs the Boston mega mosque - is said by federal authorities to be its front group in the United States. The Brotherhood's spiritual guide, Qaradawi, says it must destroy Israel and then conquer Europe and America. The Brotherhood's ultimate goal is to impose Sharia law worldwide and create a global caliphate.
...
Since the Obama Administration seems intent on working with today's Hitlerites, it's not surprising that US aid continues to flow to the Palestinian Authority after the PA announced a unity deal with the Brotherhood's Hamas branch. Preventing American dollars from funding Hamas is clearly a national Jewish issue. Yet so far, the only national Jewish organization that has challenged Obama on this betrayal of the Jewish people has been the valiant Zionist Organization of America.
But Obama's outreach to Muslim anti- Semites is no less an issue right here, for Boston's Jews.
It is Massachusetts Senator John Kerry who has become the point man for the president's push to build ties with the MB in Egypt. In December, Kerry met with the top officials of the Brotherhood's political party. The senator said he "welcomed the results of Egypt's first democratic elections," which gave 40 percent of the vote to the MB and another 24 percent to the even-more radical Salafi al-Nour Party. Then he urged the International Monetary Fund to fund the MB. US dollars ($55 billion) account for nearly 20 percent of IMF's worth. So now, a Massachusetts senator is helping to send US dollars to people religiously committed to killing Jews - yet I am not aware of any Jewish leader here lodging a protest against him.
And of course, there is that still simmering issue of the Saudi-funded mega-mosque in Roxbury, built in part with funds raised by Qaradawi, who - because he was banned from setting foot in America by President Bill Clinton - had to raise money for the mosque among Boston Muslims via video broadcast to a gathering at the downtown Sheraton. Since then, thinking about his own end time, he's expressed this delightful wish: "I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus I will seal my life with martyrdom." Here too, there is silence from our local Jewish community and religious leaders.
Labels: American Jewish leadership, Barack Hussein Obama, John Kerry, Muslim Brotherhood
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:35 PM
5 comments
This is an event publicity poster I got from an organization of Yordim (emigrees from Israel) who once invited Avraham "Vinegar the Son of Wine" Burg to speak. Now they want to know if the ad campaign by the Absorption Ministry last month was offensive or whether the reaction to it was excessive.Labels: American Jewish leadership, Yordim
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:45 PM
0 comments
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Like what you see? Please hit my tip box below!
Jerusalem |
 |
 |
