On Capitol Hill, Senator Kaine, as a member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, has consistently advocated the need for a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the only way to ensure
that Israel can survive and flourish as a Jewish and democratic state
and that Palestinians can live with independence and dignity. He was
also a leader in the successful effort to defang the Iranian nuclear
program through tough sanctions and effective diplomacy that produced
the JCPOA agreement.
Funny, but didn't I read something remarkably different yesterday? Oh yes, here. And that's why others feel differently about Kaine.
But for the hawkish Republican Jewish Coalition, such background did not
garner their approval or commendation. They swiftly lambasted Kaine as
enabling Tehran in acquiring a nuclear arsenal and, indeed, his
affiliation with J Street itself — an organization they regard as
lobbying positions that do not serve Israel’s interests.
“After leading President Obama’s disastrous
foreign policy in the Middle East, Hillary Clinton’s selection of
Senator Kaine as her running mate further proves she cannot be trusted
to keep our country safe,” RJC’s executive director Matt Brooks said in a
press release.
“Whether it’s his vote for the Iran deal,
which paves the way to a nuclear-armed Iran, or his proud support of the
progressive anti-Israel J Street agenda which earned him their
enthusiastic endorsement, Senator Kaine has shown how out of touch he is
on the dangers facing our country,” he added. “A Clinton-Kaine White
House would continue the same failed policies that have made the US and
our allies around the world less safe.”
Hey Times of Israel - it's not just the 'hawkish Republican Jewish coalition' that regards J Street as lobbying positions that do not serve Israel's interests - it's the Israeli Knesset.
If Trump wins this election, one of the first actions of Israel's supporters should be the defenestration of J Street.
How the Obama administration paid J Street to push the Iranian nuclear sellout
The Obama administration through its National Security Council passed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Ploughshares Fund, an NGO that favors allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. And the Ploughshares Fund paid J Street over $500,000 to push its agenda last summer. That's what came out over this past weekend.
A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in
selling the Iran nuclear deal gave liberal Jewish lobbying organization J
street $576,500 to advocate for the deal.
...
J-Street, a liberal Jewish political action
group, undertook a comprehensive campaign last year to support the
nuclear deal, amid lobbying by Jerusalem and other pro-Israel groups to
convince Congress to block the landmark pact.
Ahead of a crucial congressional vote to either ratify or block the deal, J Street in July 2015 took out a full page advertisement in The New York Times supporting urging Congress to refrain from “sabotaging” the Iranian nuclear agreement.
J Street also created TV ads and built a wesbite to stump for the accord.
The group said called the New York Times ad
was “the latest phase of [our] multimillion dollar campaign to ensure
that the US Congress does not sabotage the nuclear deal.”
The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to “build a
safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce
and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that
dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its
behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more
attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the
president’s top foreign policy aides.
Waiting to hear regrets from Senate Democrats over their votes in favor of letting Iran become a nuclear power.
Here are some more Ploughshares donees.
The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the
Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500.
They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media
outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.
Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.
More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.
Princeton University got $70,000 to support
former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein
Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the
range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s
nuclear program.”
The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported
“national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of US nuclear
weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international
nuclear security topics and US policy toward nuclear security,”
according to Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, recently published
online.
Oh yeah, and NPR got $100,000 too. Because government funding isn't enough.
J Street didn’t deny receiving the funds and
said it “acted in order to advance the nuclear deal with Iran out of
faith that it was an important deal, that it had a great contribution
also to the security of Israel.”
“(This) faith is shared by us as well as many
sources, both in the American government and in the Israeli security
establishment, as well as among the Jewish public in the US, most of
whom supported the nuclear deal,” the group said in a press release on
Sunday.
“The nuclear deal with Iran has blocked Iran’s
pathways to a nuclear weapon for the coming years,”said J Street,
adding “we are proud of the activities of the organization to advance
the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, a deal that we
believe is of the utmost importance for the security of the state of
Israel.”
Among those J Street cites as Israeli supporters of the deal is pathological liar Ami Ayalon. The endorsements of the deal have already been proven false.
One day, this will all be part of Obama's legacy - along with his infesting American politics with sleaze.
ICYMI this says it all: J Street elects Muslim of Pakistani descent as President
After this one, let no one say that J Street is pro-Israel: J Street U has elected a Muslim of Pakistani descent as its President.
At its “Summer Leadership Institute” in
Washington this week, J Street U elected Amna Farooqi, a senior at the
University of Maryland who is of Pakistani descent, Haaretz reported. Farooqi co-wrote a blog post for the Times of Israel
in March on Hillel President Eric Fingerhut’s decision to withdraw from
a commitment to speak a the J Street National Conference.
Approximately 120 J Street U student leaders
attended the four-day gathering, according to Haaretz, and J Street U
says it has 4,000 active participants on 75 college campuses in the
United States.
A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Farooqi
grew up in a “fairly religious Muslim home” with “a lot of Jewish
friends,” Haaretz reported.
But “growing up in a household sympathetic to
the Palestinian cause, the Palestine-Israel conflict was always the
elephant in the room,” she said in a video filmed at the J Street
conference last March. “This conflict evoked a level of anger and
emotion in me, and I needed to learn more. Everything I was learning
about the conflict made me not want to be pro-Israel. … As someone who
wanted to contribute to ending this conflict I knew I needed to
understand all sides.”
Pro-Israel anyone? Their heads are so open their brains have fallen out.
Every organization that claims to be Jewish is lining up against the Iran nuclear sellout. Everyone except one: Pro-Obama, pro-Iran, anti-Israel J Street. Charles Jacobs and Elliott Hamilton argue that it's time to kick J Street out of the Jewish communal tent. In fact, it's long past time.
But the J Street lobby has broken ranks with that sentiment. Back when the deal’s framework was reached in early April, J Street co-authored a statement with the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC) and the Arab American Institute,
welcoming the agreement. Now that the details have become known and
almost every major Jewish organization is trying to kill the deal, J
Street is undertaking a multi-million dollar campaign
to get Jews to support an arrangement that at best keeps Iran nuke-free
for about a decade while it gives the mullahs $150 billion to arm
Israel’s enemies. This puts J Street in direct confrontation with the
more than 80 percent of the Jews of Israel, whose political parties from
left to right are fiercely united against President Barack Obama’s
deal.
J Street’s campaigning for the Iran deal comes as no
surprise to those who have been carefully watching the organization
since its inception in 2008. J Street’s policy on Iran has never been
aligned with the rest of the American Jewish community. In Americans for
Peace and Tolerance’s film “The J Street Challenge,” Professor Alan
Dershowitz complains that: “It’s impossible to know what J Street’s
position on Iran is. I actually offered to contribute money to J Street
if they would answer a series of specific questions about their
positions on Iran, and I couldn’t get an answer to any of those
questions.”
J Street has a history of taking significant sums of
money from anti-Israel sources—and lying about it. For example, J Street
continuously lied about its funding from George Soros, who has blamed
Israel and the Jewish people for the rise of global anti-Semitism. While
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami kept denying it, Eli Lake reported in
2010 that J Street acquired $750,000 from Soros’s family. Ben-Ami was
eventually forced to apologize for lying.
Even more troubling was
the discovery that Genevieve Lynch, a board member of the NIAC, also
funded J Street. NIAC is no ally of the Jewish community, and has
recently created a 501(c)4 to counter pro-Israel groups’ attempts to
halt the Iran deal.
In 2012, J Street spent $100,000 trying to
convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill to both ease the rhetoric against
Iran and to alter the status of the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission to
the U.S.
J Street has also received funding from the Ploughshares
Fund, Inc., a global security foundation that supports a “peaceful
world, including on free of nuclear weapons.” This same organization
spent millions of dollars pushing for Chuck Hagel’s nomination for
Secretary of Defense and lobbying to lift sanctions off Iran. According
to the Ploughshares Fund’s Form 990 in 2012, J Street acquired $25,000
“to support efforts to educate members of Congress on the consequences
that preemptive use of military force against Iran’s nuclear program may
have on Israel.” In its Form 990s in both 2013 and 2014, it shows that
Ploughshares gave J Street a total of $275,000 “to use a pro-Israel
frame to educate members of Congress on the dangers that a military
confrontation with Iran could have for both Israel and the U.S., and to
promote political solutions to the nuclear impasse.”
Why would a
seemingly pro-Israel organization acquire funds from pro-Iran sources to
promote a pro-Iran agenda to the United States Congress? One reason
seems clear: J Street’s usefulness to Israel’s adversaries is its
“pro-Israel frame,” and that can be successfully monetized.
At 'pleasant, cooperative' meeting Jewish group urges Obama to remove UN backing for Israel
There was a second meeting of Jews with President Hussein Obama at the White House this week. The meeting was led by supporters of J Street, the organization for anti-Israel JINO's. In an atmosphere described as 'pleasant and cooperative,' the group urged President Obama to stop protecting Israel at the United Nations.
The exchange took place in the second of two meetings Obama held with
American Jewish leaders to discuss the current negotiations with Iran
over its nuclear program, as well as other regional issues. According to
a source who was in the room, one J Street supporter told the president
that if he decided to back a Palestinian state resolution over Israeli
objections, “let us know first, and we’ll do the legwork for you, in the
community… so you’re not going to come in cold.” Among the J Street
supporters who were part of the delegation meeting with Obama were
Alexandra Stanton, Lou Susman and Victor Kovner.
The atmosphere at that second meeting was described as pleasant and
cooperative, in marked contrast to the first meeting, described by one
source as “ungiving, very stern and tense.” The Algemeiner spoke to four individuals who attended the
meetings, as well as one other who did not attend, but was extensively
briefed on what was said. All of the sources declined to be named for
this report, as they were not authorized by the Administration to speak
on the record.
The discussions totaled approximately two hours and forty minutes and
were likely the most significant ones between the two sides since the
start of the Obama presidency. “For sure this was the most important”
one prominent Jewish leader stated, “because it was about Iran.”
The President was only at the first meeting for about an hour and ten minutes.
Regarding the first meeting, at which senior representatives of
groups like the World Jewish Congress, the Conference of Presidents and
the Anti-Defamation League were present, one source said the
conversation was “difficult” and “depressing.” The source added that
“nobody was breaking ground, they were at cross purposes.” An attendee
who spoke with JTA described the gathering as “intense” and said, “There
was an openheartedness, there were some deep reflections by the
president.” Other participants who spoke with JTA used the term
“therapeutic” to describe the tone of the talks.
...
The second meeting, which was largely stacked with Obama allies, “was
very pleasant,” according to one of the guests. It was “all his
friends,” the guest said. As well as J Street supporters, others present
included Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment mogul who has
been critical of Obama’s Middle East policies, and Democratic donors
associated with AIPAC, including past presidents Amy Friedkin and Howard
Friedman
Obama presented himself as thinking “like an ultra-liberal Jew” and conveyed the “J Street mantra,” according to the source.
Although some pointed questions were asked, Obama faced far less
resistance, and was even encouraged to take steps against Israel and
remain steadfast in his approach to Iran negotiations.
According to the source, one “J Streeter” pushed Obama to remove the
American veto protection of Israel at the UN in the event that a
Security Council resolution called for the creation of a Palestinian
State.
The individual “said if you decide to go against Israel at the UN,
‘let us know first, and we’ll do the legwork for you, in the community…
so you’re not going to come in cold…’ and they pushed him to do it,” the
participant told The Algemeiner. “Another major Jewish leader…
not J Street, more centrist, but he wants to cosy up to Obama, says
[regarding Iran] ‘you are doing the right thing, we are behind you 100
percent’.”
Jewish support for Obama has dropped 23% since 2009. One can only wonder how many American Jews would have supported the likes of Hitler and Khomeni had they been given the chance.
Report: James 'F*ck the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway' Baker to be keynote speaker at J Street gala
Mr. "F*ck the Jews, they didn't even vote 4 us" is the keynote speaker @ the J Street gala in March. I am at a loss for words.
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) February 15, 2015
Why the surprise? This is entirely in keeping with J Street's anti-Israel agenda.
This is rich: Hillel, J Street University and Students for 'Justice' in 'Palestine' sponsor an event together
And you thought that Hillel would have nothing to do with Students for 'Justice' in 'Palestine' and other anti-Zionist groups, and that's why 'Open Hillel' was started. And you also thought that 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' J Street wouldn't partner with groups that promote BDS. Well, you were wrong. And what started on the east coast has now come to the west coast.
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a club new to
Occidental this year, collaborated with Hillel and J Street last
Wednesdayto 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!?!?!
The Swarthmore chapter of
Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (SPJP), an offshoot of the
well-known anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), on
Sept. 4 co-hosted a discussion on the recent Gaza conflict with J
Street U.
“We are co-hosting a discussion with J Street tonight at 7:30 in Kohlberg 116. Everyone is welcome,” Swarthmore SPJP tweeted.
Additionally,
J Street U and SPJP, along with other Swarthmore campus groups
including Hillel and Christian and Muslims clubs, last week held a vigil
to honor those who died in the Gaza conflict. (Hillel International’s
Israel guidelines forbid engagement with groups or speakers that
“delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel,” but
Swarthmore Hillel last year decided to reject those guidelines and align
with the “Open Hillel” movement.)
On a national level, J Street states that it “opposes the global BDS movement”
and believes that BDS is an “inappropriate way” to try to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But in response to an inquiry about the
Swarthmore events, a J Street spokesperson explained how the lobby’s
co-sponsorship policy does not preclude partnering with pro-BDS groups.
“Our policy in terms of
co-sponsorship is pretty consistent. We do not support BDS, but we do
not have any problem with co-sponsoring programs with organizations that
do,” Jessica Rosenblum, J Street’s director of media and
communications, told JNS.org.
J Street’s co-sponsorship policy extends to groups on both the anti-Israel or pro-Israel side of the spectrum.
This proves once again Congressman Gary Ackerman's statement that J Street's heads are so open that their brains have fallen out.
Except, of course, when it comes to actually doing something that is pro-Israel....
That policy was reflected by J Street’s decision in July, during the
Gaza conflict, to pull out of a communal Israel solidarity rally in
Boston. Shaina Wasserman, J Street’s Boston director, wrote in a letter
to the local Jewish Community Relations Council that the lobby decided
to pull out of the rally because the event did not include speakers who
represented its “pro-Israel, pro-peace perspective.”
“What was
missing for us in this rally, and what ultimately precluded our
co-sponsorship, was that despite our efforts, there was no space made to
raise the issues that follow from our commitment to Israel’s Jewish and
democratic future,” wrote Wasserman.
I hope that the Israeli government is paying attention and will stop sending representatives to J Street events...
J Street prays for the safe and quick return of the three Israeli teenagers missing since Thursday in the West Bank.
We hope that security forces are able to locate them and bring them home safely and quickly.
While the security forces do their work and try to find them, our
thoughts are with the students, and our hearts go out to their family
and friends.
Missing? Well, yeah, they're missing alright. Maybe they just fell asleep on a bus and no one has started that bus since then.... Oh, wait.... They called a police station and said they were being kidnapped, and the IDF is looking all over Judea for them. So maybe they were kidnapped.... But don't expect J Street to admit that, let alone admit who kidnapped the boys.
But most telling about this post is that two days later, it's only been shared eight times on Facebook and once on Twitter. Even my posts get shared more than that.
Pro-Israel? You gotta be kidding.
The image is one of many of the 'Palestinians' celebrating the kidnapping posted by Aussie Dave here.
The Times of Israel has the full story of why J Street didn't get in to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Here's the key part.
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.
When you read the entire article, it's readily apparent that those two blocs were the Conservative and Reform movements.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has resoundingly rejected the application of J Street, the American 'Jewish' pro-'Palestinian' organization, to become a member. The vote, which required two thirds in favor to pass (34 out of 51), was 17 in favor, 22 opposed and three abstentions.
Professor Jacobson presents a whole bunch of commentary from across the spectrum and I urge you to read his entire post. What bothers me about this is that 17 groups voted in favor, and more importantly, that so many 'opinion makers' believe J Street is already 'one of us.' An anti-Israel group that is financed by non-Jews and whose membership is largely not Jewish is not 'one of us.'
One of those refined J Street leaders called Brandeis senior and pro-Israel activist Daniel Mael a 's**t bag' as he walked to his dorm room on campus late Friday night. This is from Adam Kredo.
Mael said that he and a friend were returning to their dorm rooms at
around 12:45 a.m. on Saturday when he came across Lepson—who says she
currently works as a political intern at the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—and a group of her friends.
“As they approached, Talia Lepson give me a really, really intense
stare and then I turned to the students and said, ‘Shabbat shalom,’”
said Mael, who is an observant Jew. “I was being serious. I thought that
religion and politics are not necessarily intertwined. I thought you
could still be nice.”
Lepson “responded by saying, ‘Jews hate you’,” Mael said. “As she
continued to walk, she screamed, ‘You are a shit bag.’” Mael said an
unidentified person to her right hurled a similar insult.
Students who witnessed the event say they were shocked to see the J Street leader verbally attack Mael.
“It is somewhat scary to witness malice in exchange for benevolence,
especially in the context of religion, where we are supposed to set
aside politics when embracing it,” said one student who witnessed the
incident but was not comfortable speaking out publicly.
Mael said that he “proceeded immediately to the university police to
file an incident report” following the run-in with Lepson, who has
interned at the White House, according to her LinkedIn profile.
A Brandeis University police official said that the department does
not speak to the media on the weekend and recommended a reporter call
back later.
J Street tried to turn the tables, self-righteously accusing Mael of harassing J Street's leadership by fabricating stories.
It is one thing to engage in a strong and vibrant argument over the
difficult issues at stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We are
deeply committed to an open and engaging dialogue when it is grounded in
the substance of our disagreements.
It is another to conduct a campaign of personal intimidation and
harassment, which is the pattern of behavior that Daniel Mael, a student
blogger at Brandeis, has established in relating to J Street U student
leaders.
In a new episode this weekend, a story was fabricated concerning one of
the leaders of J Street U Brandeis. That student has now filed a report
with the campus police over the incident that Mael invented and his
ongoing pattern of harassment at Brandeis. The matter is now in the
hands of campus police and we hope the authorities will take action to
address our serious concerns.
In the meantime, we ask that others in the Jewish community and media -
even those who don't agree with us politically - will distance
themselves from this blogger and others with a history of conduct driven
by malice and deceit.
That's pretty Orwellian. We don't agree with Mael and therefore you should distance yourself from him and not hear his point of view because we would never be uncivil. Really?
The allegations broke this morning when photos were discovered of the two students wearing the shirts at an event sponsored by J Street U last April. In coverage of the event, AbuNe’meh is quoted as a
representative of the group. In AbuNe’meh’s Facebook postings, shown
below, when asked where they acquired the shirts, he pointed to a
vicious anti-Israel website called existenceisresitance.org. That
website also offers shirts with a map of the entirety of Israel drawn in
with a keffiyeh pattern and the caption “Un-Occupy,” calling for the
elimination of Israel as a whole. The site describes the shirts
explicitly as showing a picture of Leila Khaled....
It is worth noting that another student, Elisabeth Housman, who is listed here as “liking” the pro-terror photo, is also listed on the local campus Hillel website as the official contact person for J Street U on campus.
The second student in the photo, Yamaguchi, was described as the moderator of the event. He has gone on record advocating
for the ”full right of return” of Palestinians to pre-1967 Israel. “In
some ways,” he has written, “the essence of being Palestinian today is
the right of return itself: what we lost, and what we fight to regain.”
Neither student was apparently available to respond to the
accusations, as both seem to be off campus this year. As of this
writing, both list “Ramallah,” in the Palestinian Authority, as their
current city of residence on what appear to be their Facebook pages.
Washington University’s J Street U branch came under fire recently this week for sponsoring an event for the discredited anti-IDF group “Breaking the Silence.”
Anti-J Street documentary screened in Philadelphia
I want to show you the trailer for a documentary (which I still have not seen) about the 'Jewish' J Street group, which calls itself 'pro-Israel, pro-peace.' J Street is currently seeking admission to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the fact that this documentary was shown in Philadelphia last night will not help J Street's cause.
The J Street Challenge is an important and timely documentary about a significant issue facing the American Jewish community.
Since
it was founded in 2008, J Street's idealistic message has attracted
many Jews, young and old, who are frustrated by the Middle East conflict
and sincerely want peace between Arabs and Jews. J Street has been a
subject of controversy. Critics claim that J Street has divided the
Jewish community and weakened American Jewish support for Israel. "The J
Street Challenge" lets viewers hear both sides of this important debate
over the elusive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The film
explores the reasons for J Street's appeal, as well as the diverse and
at times contradictory motivations of its leaders and followers. The
film is being released at a critical time for the American Jewish
community given the intense efforts by the United States to resolve the
conflict and influence the community's leadership to support these
efforts. The Kerry peace initiative has further divided the Jewish
community, with J Street working to weaken the influence of AIPAC while
strongly backing the administration.
The film includes distinguished
scholars and writers from a wide political spectrum, including Harvard
professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse, Rabbi Daniel Gordis of the
Shalem College in Jerusalem, Caroline Glick, Managing Editor of the
Jerusalem Post, Professor Richard Landes of Boston University, Lenny Ben
David -- former Israeli diplomat and author, and Bret Stephens,
Pulitzer prize winning columnist for The Wall Street Journal.
Let's go to the videotape. More after the video.
At issue is a March 27 event sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
Greater Philadelphia and by the local Hillel, titled “What It Means To
Be Pro-Israel.” The answer to the question, at least in the eyes of the
organizers, is revealed in the event’s content: It will feature a
screening of a full-length anti-J-Street documentary and a panel made up
mainly of critics of the organization.
The upcoming event has sparked an angry debate within
the Philadelphia community, the nation’s fourth largest, and has
brought to the surface accusations against the Jewish federation’s
leadership and its decision-making process. “Political views on the
right are listened to more, because the few people donating large
amounts of dollars are on that political side,” said Jill Zipin, a
community activist who has protested the decision to sponsor the event.
“The Jewish federation shouldn’t be a tent of one Jewish donor.”
Panelists at the event, which will take place on the
University of Pennsylvania campus, include Harvard law professor Alan
Dershowitz, a staunch defender of Israel and just as staunch a critic of
J Street; Charles Jacobs, who heads the group that produced the
anti-J-Street film, and Sara Greenberg, a Harvard University graduate
student who has been active in fighting attempts to boycott Israel.
Supporters of J Street have taken issue with the
makeup of the panel and, more importantly, with the movie that will be
the evening’s centerpiece. The J Street Challenge,
released earlier this year, is a documentary aimed, according to the
film’s official synopsis, at “examining and debating J Street’s message
and its leaders.” It does so through clips from speeches of the lobby’s
leaders and a series of interviews with experts, almost all of them
known as leading critics of the group. Speakers in the movie
accuse J Street of “dividing the Jewish community,” of being
“imperialistic” and of manifesting “arrogance” in their views on Middle
East peace. The J Street Challenge was produced by Americans for Peace
and Tolerance, a not-for-profit organization devoted to fighting Islamic
extremism.
The J Street Challenge - The Seductive Allure of Peace in our Time
Here's a trailer for a new movie that I know you're all going to want to watch. It's all about the 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' J Street, and the challenge they represent to the Jewish community. I have a few friends who are in this trailer.
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
