Abu Yehuda

I have just returned from a showing of the film The J Street Challenge: The Seductive Allure of Peace in our time. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Here is the trailer:

The film made a lot of good points about J Street’s ideology (“they couldn’t sell their ideas in Israel, so they imported them into America”), the psychology of its appeal, especially to young Jews, and its dishonesty. I’ve written quite a lot about J Street in FresnoZionism.

I live (until the beginning of August, when my wife and I return to Israel after 26 years) in a metropolitan area of about 500,000 people, in which there are fewer than 1000 Jewish families. I am used to being told that I’m the first Jew someone has met, although I never offer to let them touch my horns.

You have no idea what ‘apathetic about Jewish issues’ means until you have seen my town. There is a Reform temple of about 350 families, a Conservative shul with about 40, and a smallish Chabad house. When I first suggested that the local Jewish Federation should show the film, several people asked me “what’s J Street?”

I first asked the Reform rabbi if we could have the showing at his temple, since it is the biggest facility. He declined because he thought it would be ‘divisive’ and because he disagreed with its message (that J Street is an anti-Israel wolf in pro-Israel sheep’s clothing). I asked him if he would take part in the panel discussion after the film as a defender of J Street, but again he demurred, saying that he would do nothing to help with this project. At first, he didn’t even want us to leave flyers for the event at the temple, but he quickly backtracked — after all, the temple had never refused to publicize a Federation event before.

This soon became known (and the polite and respectful discussions we had on the subject presented as altercations), so it became The Film the Rabbi Doesn’t Want You to See. This probably significantly boosted the attendance when we showed it today at the Conservative synagogue.

I was not exactly surprised, but it was depressing to note that of the 70 or so people attending — it was publicized heavily, including a direct mailing to 500 families — close to 90% were over the age of 65, and possibly one or two were under 50. College-age kids and young families were entirely missing — more or less proving J Street’s point that the concerns of the Jewish establishment (that’s us) are not their concerns.

After the film we had a panel discussion featuring me vs. a guy trying to defend J Street. The discussion was surprisingly animated, with most of those present opposing J Street. But this wasn’t the audience that needed to have it.

My wife is resigning from Hadassah, sending back her pins after decades of membership and several terms each as treasurer and president of her chapter. The precipitating factors seem to have been the change in Hadassah from a grass-roots movement of Zionist women into a slick professionally-managed fundraising organization which nevertheless managed to lose $90 million to Bernie Madoff. They should have known better, and so should Sheryl Weinstein, Hadassah’s chief financial officer who had an affair with Bernie while they were investing with him.

Lise’s Hadassah pins that she will be returning. Some are for donations, some for service.

But the straws that broke the camel’s back were a new mission statement that doesn’t contain the word ‘Zionism’, and Hadassah’s vote in favor of J Street’s membership in the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

And please don’t get me started on Jewish Federations of North America, whose CEO, Jerry Silverman, ‘earned’ $612,989 in 2012.

J Street and Co. continue to say that the Jewish Establishment has lost its way. They may be wrong about everything else, but they got that one right.

J Street is to Zionism what Jews for Jesus are to Judaism — Caroline Glick

The first time I visited Israel, I had this conversation:

Israeli: Don’t be a friar.
Me: A what?
Israeli: A friar. You know. How can you not? It’s English!

Well, not exactly, at least not American English. But what it means is someone who gives away what is rightfully his by being too nice. “Hurry up, take the parking space. Don’t be a friar.” More strongly, it can mean sucker or dupe.

That’s what’s so infuriating about Jews for Jesus. Not that they are Christians — that’s not a problem. I admire committed Christians; the world would be a better place if there were more of them. Not even that they want to convert Jews to Christianity — we’re used to it by now. But Jews for Jesus want to make friars out of gullible Jews. They pretend that they are just another Jewish denomination, except for one thing. But it isn’t a small thing; it’s the whole ball game.

Nobody likes being fooled, made a friar against his or her will. And that is exactly what J Street’s oily Jeremy Ben Ami is trying to do to us.

J Street lobbies for US policies that are anti-Israel, even including a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel that the Obama Administration vetoed (although Susan Rice also gave a speech that supported its content). J Street’s PAC supports politicians who vote against Israel’s interests in Congress. Its lobbying record is more like that of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Iranian-American Council than AIPAC’s. J Street invites some of the most vehement anti-Zionists it can find outside of Gaza (like Mustafa Barghouti and Rebecca Vilkomerson) to speak to their conventions.

J Street looks, walks, quacks and lobbies like an anti-Israel duck; and the fact that it has received at least $750,000 from sources related to George Soros — the fellow who told a Jewish audience that Jews and Israel are the cause of anti-Semitism — and lied about it until caught doesn’t help. Ben Ami insists that J Street is doing all of this for the good of Israel, which he claims is in the grip of a right-wing government whose policies are “anti-peace.”

Nonsense. Israel’s government is really quite centrist, and its security and diplomatic policies are approved by a great majority of Israelis. Israel is a democracy — indeed, it is in some ways more democratic than the US — and the views held by J Street are shared only by a tiny minority of the Left in Israel.

But Ben Ami believes that he knows better than most Israelis, who send their kids to the army to defend the state that he wants to carve up.

And he also believes that the recent decision by the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to reject its application for membership was due to a “a minority of the farthest right wing organizations,” although the secret ballot came up 17 for and 22 against. Two of the groups that supported J Street (the Reform and Conservative movements) had a total of eight votes from their affiliates, and it still wasn’t enough. So much for right-wing machinations!

J Street is very well-financed. Ben Ami is a public relations specialist, and it shows. His positions align with the Obama Administration (he once called J Street the President’s “blocking back” on the Middle East). He gets plenty of support on campuses from anti-Israel academics, and his administration connection helps with left-of-center media.

And yet, the Council of Presidents is not a bunch of friars. Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Reform movement, a member of J Street’s Rabbinic Cabinet and a former member of its board of directors (he had to leave the position when non-friar Reform Jews vehemently protested his nomination), was the most prominent member of the Council that called for J Street’s inclusion, and he seems to have pulled out all the stops.

But J Street went down anyway. My guess is that most of the groups represented, even some of the ‘dovish’ ones, realized that while strategies may differ, there is line between wanting Israel to survive and not. And J Street is on the wrong side of it.