by Reb Yudel · Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Guest post from Lawrence Bush:
This Sunday, Jewish Currents, The Workmen’s Circle and The Shalom Center are cosponsoring “Jews Uniting to End the War and Heal America,” a day-long conference featuring a remarkable list of speakers and representation from a broad, liberal Jewish spectrum.
Central Synagogue, 123 East 55th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues), NYC, 9:30-5:15 (registration pens at 8:30)
Room is limited; preregistration is recommended! A full list of speakers, including Jewschool Founder Daniel Sieradsky, can be found at http://www.circle.org/jewsuniting/.
If we think of each human life as an entire world, as the Jewish tradition urges us to do, then the war in Iraq is a black hole swallowing galaxies. Yes, the war has moved to the backburner of public consciousness because of all the other ways in which our country is suffering from the radically ideological, and radically incompetent, Bush government. Nevertheless, ending the Iraq war and reckoning with the damages it has caused is a critical foundationstone of the “change” that Barack Obama urged throughout his campaign. Few public voices are saying so, however, and few voices are challenging the “preemptive war” doctrine or other military policies that have held sway since 9/11.
Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for Obama, despite all the predictions of Jewish liberal “slippage” and all of the lies and rumor-mongering that tried to provoke that slippage. Now is the time for the Jewish community to follow up its vote by breaking its silence about this war. One key purpose of the conference is to explore the complex reasons for that silence and finally release our community from its grip. We have weighed and largely withheld our words for more than five years; it’s time, now, to lift our voices and direct our resources towards the healing of America.
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by Josh Frankel · Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
It is here in the Palestinian territories that you see the worst side of Israel . . . Yet it is also here that you see the very best side of Israel.
Alright, there’s nothing Earth shattering here. No brand new observation that we haven’t seen before, but Nicholas Kristoff does it right today. Too often our friends on the right laud Israel’s greatness while ignoring the underbelly, and too often our friends on the left scourge Israel for its mistakes, while missing it’s beauty. If you want a balanced opinion, read Mr. Kristoff’s essay. It’s an easy read, and it’s good for the soul.
by Kung Fu Jew · Friday, June 6th, 2008
The Union of Progressive Zionists wants an Associate Director. Below the fold for full details.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Somebody squealed. The “J Street” project, America’s first progressive Israel PAC, was supposed to be launched next month, but the Jewish Week breaks the story that indeed, forces of the American Jewish community are organizing to kick the right-wing stranglehold on Congress in the knees.
Having been to DC in legislators’ offices for various causes and in particular Israel, it’s disgusting how the Hill functions. Most legislators don’t make decisions on Israel — they defer to the Jewish Congresspeople. Who in turn defer to Jewish money. In exchange, a Jewish legislator votes according to those other reps on their issues. As a result, issues with single-constituent lobbies (i.e. almost nobody lobbies on Israel except the Jews) get their way, which means a donor in New York can easily influence a legislator from Arizona on an issue with little or no Arizonan constituency. Lastly, Bills are rarely written by legislators but by the lobbies, who pitch them to friendly lawmakers, and then whip other legislators into line. Lobbies invent faux grassroots groups and think tanks to support their interests (case in point: CMIP, a publisher of repudiated research on Palestinian textbook hate speech).
And it’s sad that real votes (local constituents calling, phoning and visiting) are only an expression of money, as in how many votes can you organize for your issue with the money you have? For comparison, AIPAC is on the Hill four times a year; ZOA brought 300 people to their last advocacy conference; the JCPA (although far from the worst) represents 125 organizations of the American Jewish community’s old guard yearly. Despite all that, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom was founded in 2002 to put Jewish votes behind pro-peace legislation and has brought to Washington a new knowledge (and a few slim victories) that the Jewish community is diverse — and that the old guard poorly speaks for the average Joseph. BTVS just announced it’s annual leadership conference and advocacy visit to the Hill, June 21-24, which you should join.
But sadly, American democracy is more coin-operated that hand-crank. More »
by Kung Fu Jew · Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
JPost covers UPZ’s birthright israel trip — the only progressive such trip in existance, now in partnership with the New Israel Fund. And I couldn’t agree more with the impact of showing people the real Israel over showing them the facade of a Jewish Disneyland:
[UPZ Executive Director Tammy] Shapiro believes that bringing young Jews into direct contact with the often unsettling reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can help to strengthen the connection of young Jews with Israel. “When people actually go to these places and learn about things for themselves, they can go back to their campuses in America and talk about it better than they did before,” she says.
American pro-Israel activism is pretty pathetic. And it’s failing. American Jewish students are in a miserably uneducated place to defend accusations of human rights abuses in the West Bank — the daily reality, as attested to by soldiers themselves — but they are expected to do so by the pro-Israel establishment as it stands. This is the success of UPZ’s progressive birthright israel tours, NIF’s social activist tours, Encounter’s tours of Bethlehem and Shovrim Shtika/Breaking the Silence’s tours of Hebron. Support for Israel should be divorced from support for the occupation. But presently they go part and parcel, to the uncomfortable disaster of students connected to Israel. And non-students, not to mention.
But just whipping a little checkpoint-and-poverty on students is detrimental and thus wasteful, as they leave Israel feeling that reconciliation is impossible between their values and their Israel aspirations. This is why the UPZ is so important and why they, NIF, Encounter, and Shovrim Shtika stand out amist the plethora of other tours which happen to be organized by Jews also:
…But the UPZ’s program isn’t the only tour bringing Diaspora Jews into contact with Palestinians. Birthright Unplugged, which has no connection to birthright israel, brings North American Jews to the Holy Land to engage in Palestinian solidarity activism, many of whom return to US campuses as anti-Zionist activists, says Shapiro.
“Birthright Unplugged is an alternative to birthright which includes the Palestinian narrative, but ignores the Jewish narrative,” she says. “Our tour is more complex and doesn’t ignore either one. We are not coming from the perspective of animosity toward Israel; we care about the country deeply.”
I fully believe it’s impossible to understand the conversation about settlements without seeing the varieties of settlements yourself. I think it’s fully impossible to address the first-hand testimonies of ISM and pro-Palestinian activists without also having experienced East Jerusalem and the territories. And I think it’s disgustingly disingenuous to laud Israel’s civil rights record in relation to her Arab neighbors without paying heed to the pains and struggles of disenfranchised Israelis. We are all dangerously vulnerable of being mindless pundits if we have read only what other people say. (Read our comments exchange about Hebron to see what happens when talking heads fall under the bulldozer of first-hand experience.)
UPZ/NIF’s trip won’t take you to Gaza City. But the closer you can get, the more credibility you bear and the more able you can defend Israel interests — her moral interests and her security interests.
Registration for UPZ/NIF’s two trips are now open at www.israelexperts.com, 1st trip: May 19th-May 30th and open to ages 18-26. 2nd trip: July exclusively for ages 22-26, exact dates for this trip will be determined after registration. Email UPZ director Tammy Shapiro at director {at} upzshalom(.)org for full details.
by Kung Fu Jew · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
(X-posted from Judaism Without Borders.)
I just got off the phone with a leftist student group who wanted to partner on the Israel-Palestine project I’m coordinating. They were ready to sponsor events on their campus, publicize it widely, etc. They’ve enthusiastically done it before. But when I told her that they couldn’t be seen associating with us, my poor heart ached as I heard the disappointment in her voice. She managed to not sound upset, but considering I’ve never met this person before, I feel like I’ve just betrayed a friend.
Reputation means everything. Breira was a 70s era Jewish peace group which aired to America the occupation opponents in Israel and even accompanied them to meet with Palestinian leadership…and quickly was accused of being non-Jewish posers or self-haters, and imploded. New Jewish Agenda of the 80s was another Jewish dove group which failed to cope with membership in the Jewish community when when “member” was defined by the arch-conservatives, and it collapsed from within. For both of those groups, their former leadership now quietly sits on the boards of present dove orgs, albeit after learning a costly lesson.
The lesson is simple as it is unfair. As much as we Jewish peace and coexistence activists want to partner with Arabs and peace-seeking goyyim, the cases where we can do so without being accused of treason are sparse. This is the reason in the early days of Brit Tzedek, the organization made the decision that to do it’s work inside the Jewish community, it had to play nice with the OJC, to pick its allies with care. Other organizations also make the same sacrifices on a regular basis. Those that weren’t careful, died. Or even worse, gained the title of the “irrelevant left.”
Reputation is all that we have sometimes in this work. It’s sad that to know that if I say “Such and such activist is kipah-wearing” or “served in the IDF” or “goes to shul” or “works in the OJC” suddenly gives that person a credibility boost. That credibility is built on stereotypes as flimsy and repugnant as any other. Yet we use them and even buy into them in order to open doors.
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by aaronf · Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
A delegation of Columbia University professors is planning a trip to Tehran to apologize to Ahmadinejad. The Israel Lobby authors say we need “candid but civil” dialogue about the ME. This could be a fine example of that.
by Kung Fu Jew · Monday, January 7th, 2008
My cell phone rings. It is an unidentified number. Shit. Suspecting it’s the ex, I hit ignore. Checking voicemail minutes later, it’s (and I shit you not) a 20-year senior member of the Israeli parliament, asking to meet me. Flattered of course I was, but humored also. Because of the many progressive Israel entanglements in which I find myself these days, it’s not surprising that an aide in the office of Meretz MK Ran Cohen thought I might be able to offer him political and financial assistance as he prepares to run for chairmanship of the Meretz party primaries on March 18th. No doubt he was surprised when a 24-year-old showed up with nothing along those lines to offer. Regardless, escort he did let me to a coffeeshop gathering of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom activists in NYC where this interview was taken.
This interview was approximately a month ago and is all the more relevant now that party chairman Yossi Beilin announced he was not going to run for reelection and endorsed Hiam Oron.
MK Ran Cohen dreams of reclaiming the social justice agenda which Meretz has lost to Beilin’s focus on the peace process and thereby regaining the 5 seats Meretz has steadily lost over the past 10 years. Meretz has lost on average one seat a year, primarily in support from low-income Russians and immigrants as it became a one-trick peace pony. As The Economist said delicately, Beilin “ran it [Meretz] into the ground. His own defence, that other parties had appropriated Meretz’s peace agenda, is only partly true; he neglected its other core issues such as social justice and civil rights.” Cohen talks briefly here about all the issues of the day — Annapolis, the future of Kadima, and his party — and his hopes for Meretz.
KFJ: Is it important that Annapolis is happening?
RC: The answer is clearly yes, for two reasons. Even though I’m not so optimistic either. Ehud Olmert is not going to make comprehensive peace without a reasonable solution to Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. But the only way to open roads to continued negotiations are meetings like Annapolis.
The other reason: every minute without negotiations equals a minute with less violence. Terrorists won’t wait. Hamas will burn [incite] the situation. Hamas is sensitive to the demands of the Palestinian people; without hope among the people, Hamas will send bombers to fill the vaccuum. Dialogue is the best way to prevent violence.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
Thanks for that, BZ. And now the real Annapolis news:
Negotiations are agreed! And, the greatest accomplishment of all: all topics will be covered, saving nothing for second-stage final status talks in an indefinite future (the real failing of Camp David, Oslo, etc.), including right of return, final borders, and a comprehensive settlement with other Arab countries like Syria. The deadline? The end of 2008 (read: the end of Bush’s presidency). From JTA:
In the joint statement, announced by Bush prior to the speeches by Olmert and Abbas, the two sides announced, “In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues, without exception, as specified in previous agreements.”
But here’s the biggest, most unexpected news to emerge from the Israeli side:
“For dozens of years, many Palestinians have been living in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew, wallowing in poverty, neglect, alienation, bitterness, and a deep, unrelenting sense of deprivation,” [Israeli Prime Minister Olmert] said. “I know that this deprivation is one of the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred towards us. We are not indifferent to this suffering. We are not oblivious to the tragedies you have experienced.”
THANK YOU. We have been saying this for years, a truth that is dubious from afar surely but painfully obvious for anyone who has spent time in the territories. Fermentation of radical, violent ideals has pickled among Palestinians for 40 years — and more, but the pressure cooker has certainly been 40 years of occupation. It is a deep, deep reward to hear the words come from the Israeli Prime Minister, a concession that by it’s own right changes the very terms of debate between right and left and Israeli and Palestinian.
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by BZ · Tuesday, November 27th, 2007
The Annapolis conference convened today, bringing together delegations from around the world. Many expected (indeed, some hoped) that nothing would be accomplished at the conference. However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has shocked everyone by pushing through his radical left-wing agenda of dividing Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Not only has the division of Jerusalem been ratified, but it has already been implemented in the space of less than a day, with an efficiency uncharacteristic for Israel.
From here in Jerusalem, we can look around and see what the peaceniks have wrought. Traffic was insane today with all the moving trucks driving around the formerly undivided capital, but now that everything has settled, the Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem are now living almost entirely in separate neighborhoods. (However, in an apparent concession to parties like Yisrael Beiteinu that had threatened to quit the coalition, Olmert has agreed that municipal services will be provided primarily to the Jewish neighborhoods.) In clear defiance of the will of the many Zionist organizations who opposed the division of Jerusalem, Jewish and Arab students are now attending almost entirely separate school systems. And the anti-Zionist left has shown that it means business, by placing some neighborhoods outside the separation barrier, to create a physical rupture in the everlasting unity of our 3000-year-old holy city. Construction crews have been working triple shifts to ensure that all of this is carried out as soon as possible, ever since the order arrived from Annapolis just a few hours ago.
The anti-Zionist left isn’t content merely with dividing Jerusalem; their agenda also includes weakening the city. To this end, they have begun encouraging Jewish residents of Jerusalem to move to fast-growing outlying neighborhoods on Jerusalem’s periphery, and away from the city center, to ensure that central Jerusalem (associated with the Zionist entity) will not see economic development.
In further evidence of a left-wing anti-Israel conspiracy, population studies show that Jews will soon be a minority of the total population of all land under Israeli control, posing a threat to the future of the Jewish state.
How will supporters of Israel respond to these latest provocations?
by Kung Fu Jew · Thursday, November 15th, 2007
You know, you’re right out there in TV land. I’ve not heard much of a hopeful word out of the many folks who I know are down with peace (almost damn near everyone, despite varying caveats of right-wing or left-wing severity). And it’s rightful to be a cynic and skeptical of the outcomes of the Annapolis conference.
I am prepared to be disappointed too.
But the urgency is phenomenal not to be defeated by it. The urgency to jump to support Annapolis, despite its purported dubious chances of success, is imperative for all of us in the Jewish community. It is still right and just to work hard, even if failure is a hair’s breadth away.
I spend the bulk of my volunteer hours on progressive Jewish activism — on encouraging in others a scary existence along a fuzzy middle line between answers otherwise too convenient, building an endurance for a truly complicated and complex relationship with the Jewish state.
But to be honest, this requires a complex relationship to peace as well. An acknowledgment that fighting tooth and nail uphill towards a final status agreement between Israel and Palestine-to-be will not be the end of the issue. Final status might not mean hanging out in Hebron or vacationing in Beirut now or even by the time I’m 50. Humans are pathetic long-term thinkers and if Israel is to really survive, we cannot depend upon a temporary military superiority. The scary Pyrrhic victory of the Second Lebanon War was a warning shot across the bow — next time it may be worse. The issues won’t go away if ignored.
It is quite possible that Annapolis may lead to final status negotiations, that a peace agreement will come, everyone will clap, and we’ll settle in behind our sandbags and watch each other through rifle sights still. But a positive arrangement now sends powerful repercussions down the halls of the future. The agreements with Egypt and Jordan didn’t bear sweet fruit immediately, but today they are Israel’s most important regional diplomatic partners. A cold peace behind secure borders is at least a step forward, beyond the existential quagmire and demographic fear of the occupation.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Wednesday, October 24th, 2007
CAMERA, the amusingly-rabid Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, held a conference taking aim at Jewish defilers of Israel — defamers technically — and aimed their wrath at one of Israel’s most-read and respected papers, Haaretz.
What?? Should I laugh?
JTA reports:
In her opening remarks, [Executive Director Andrea] Levin insisted that it is not criticism that is at issue, but defamation, which, when coming from Jews, is afforded added potency. She singled out Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, one of the country’s most respected news sources and — through its English-language edition and Web site — a chief source of media perspective on Israel abroad. Levin accused the paper of printing outright lies and failing to issue corrections, even when the mistakes are pointed out.
David Landau, Ha’aretz’s editor-in-chief, refused — “as a matter of policy and principle” — to respond to the substance of Levin’s criticisms because they came from CAMERA, an organization that he dismissed as “Mcarthyite.”
“I advise your readers to relate to CAMERA’s tendentious statements and comments with the same measure of skepticism,” Landau said, “and to read Ha’aretz.com and draw their own conclusions as to the veracity of our reporting and the contribution of our op-ed columns to honest and caring debate within Israel and the Jewish world.”
CAMERA has hardly managed a level of mature discourse such as Landau. He speaks to half the battle in his response.
Among other targets included Rabbi Michael Lerner — “Only imagine Karl Marx davening and you will comprehend the dazzlement of Rabbi Lerner’s current achievement,” said a presenter. (What??) Even if that’s not a non sequitur already, the guy has always supported a two-state solution, the man’s son served in the IDF, etc. Hippy or not, the founder of Tikkun Magazine is just one of many Jews who get CAMERA’s crosshairs for not speaking a Likud or National Religious Party line. CAMERA, me thinks, must be somewhere thereabouts politically.
Shout out to Samuel Freedman, journalism professor at Columbia University and a man I greatly respect for his commitment to independent journalism (he’s on the board of New Voices magazine) makes a brief appearance in the article to corroborate CAMERA’s partisan ilk-ery.
Disagreeing with editorial bias is fine — Haaretz is left after all. But to accuse them of lying and defamation? What betzim.
by Mobius · Sunday, April 22nd, 2007
Antisemitism on the Left is a problem that just won’t go away.
One may recall a number of thorough discussions on Jewschool to that effect, including “Antisemitism on the Left,” “That’s funny, you don’t look antisemitic,” and “Opposing antisemitism in the movement.”
That last link is to a conversation that took place in response to the announcement of a workshop last summer led by April Rosenblum, a Jewish activist based in Philly who decided to take the initiative to address this issue comprehensively, first with her workshop, and now with a recently published pamphlet, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements.”
April’s work is, in many ways, the first of its kind. A valiant and cogent attempt at examining anti-Jewish discrimination from within the context of modern Left-wing anti-oppression movements, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” aims to draw clear lines for activists who wade, often unintentionally, into the morass of anti-Jewish ideology that has seeped its way into the realm of post-colonial politics.
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