Questions about the Jewish future
Questions I wish I could answer better:
1. What does the decline of COEJL and the rise of HAZON say about the dynamics in Jewish organizational life? Who is in a position to exploit those dynamics to push for more change at a faster pace, in fields other than the environment?
2. How will the rise of J Street affect the dynamics within JCRC’s, federations, synagogue Israel committees, Hillel and other places where Israel advocacy is a driving force but not the formal heart of the mission? Does anyone have a snapshot of what should or will be different than today?
3. How will the rising acceptance of LGBTQ Jews in the Jewish community mainstream affect the Orthodox/non-Orthodox divide?
4. Is there a chance that money spent on engaging less connected younger Jews will decided upon BY representatives of the target group instead of by older consultants and veteran communal agency staff members?
5. Is the rising generation of new leadership successfully mimicking the norms of the older generations, or demanding change as a condition of future engagement despite the short term consequence of not being promoted?
Just wondering.
“JStreet rising” is a bit outdated. We need to wait and see in what form the organization survives it’s current scandals, if at all. I know people who gave to them, substantially, and feel very nervous right now. Those questions about foreign billionaire racetrack donors still have not been answered with any degree of grace. This is an organization which supports political campaigns, being funded to a large extent by foreign sources. What pro-Israel Congressperson wants to be associated with that, when AIPAC is right there, clean, powerful, and with positions largely in sync with American policy. The extent to which JStreet can rebuild the confidence of their donor base AND the politicians who may have sought JStreet’s support is dubious in the near term.
Anyway, if you were to ask JStreet, with the exception of a few radicals in their midst, they wouldn’t say that the current American pro-Israel structure should be disbanded. They’re trying to co-opt the establishment to support JStreet’s objectives, not eliminate it.
Admittedly, I wasn’t closely following the story, but why did J Street lie about (obfuscate?) Soros’ involvement/funding?
I tried to determine that from statements in the press from Ben Ami, but he never seemed to provide a justification for this.
Did I miss something?
What do you want Ben Ami to say that we don’t already know? Soros is a toxic name in the pro-Israel community. What’s strange is that I remember when JStreet first began, that Soros was involved in the original meetings that established the group. This was public knowledge, reported in the papers at the time. Which should tell how just HOW toxic the Soros name is among big funders of pro-Israel advocacy, that JStreet would have gone to such lengths to obfuscate his ongoing involvement, including putting out a FAQ disclaiming his participation.
This has really gone far beyond Soros now, though. The foreign funding angle is a serious concern, because JStreet channels political contributions to politicians, and now everyone they financially supported has to watch their back that JStreet did not receive money from some foreign nutjob attempting to influence the US political system. It comes down to trust and credibility, and JStreet is bleeding in both.
Then, on top of everything, JStreet misled about sponsoring Goldstone on his tour of Capitol Hill. This is just not good. They were already struggling on policy. They’re just a scandalized org right now, and no one needs that in pro-Israel policy.
Shouldn’t this be five separate posts?
Victor — All good points, but I guess what I’m looking for is a justification. In his mea culpa, Ben Ami(sort of) admits to being dishonest. But we never get the “because,” which to me makes it worse.
I’d be curious to hear from Jew School contributors and commenters who work for or with J Street what their thoughts are on (1) Ben Ami’s dishonesty, and (2) the significant amount of funding that comes from Bill Benter and Consolacion Esdicul.
Victor and curious, here are the facts:
1. J Street never sponsored meetings with Goldstone, as confirmed by the JTA. Victor, you are wrong.
2. J Street never lied about Soros funding. Ben-Ami was asked the question before Soros gave money, at which time the answer was no. Six months later, J Street did receive money from the Soros family. At best, Ben-Ami could be accused of not running to report Soros involvement later on. Which is a stupid demand to make, since other PACs don’t do so either. Victor, you’re wrong again.
3. J Street has seen no significant loss in support, funding or access in Washington. From the Forward:
4. Quite the contrary, Ben-Ami has apologized and publicly. He apologized a month ago in a statement posted to J Street blog, sent to media and emailed to J Street’s list:
The real takeaways:
A. J Street does not, in fact, receive Saudi or a majority of foreign money. All the other donors were run of the mill Jewish contributors. The conspiracy theory that J Street is front for foreign interests is discredited.
B. Is nobody asking how this extremely private (and legally protected!) information was leaked? Can we see AIPAC’s funding lists? Can we check them for approved foreign donors? Somebody at the IRS should be prosecuted for releasing that information — which I would think every PAC in the United States would support.
C. Nobody on the left cares about Soros’ money; they wholeheartedly endorse it. Only the right-wing cares, because he’s the only possible counter to Adelson, Moskovitz and the others. And far being treyf, Jewish organizations like federations have been receiving money from Soros’ family funds for years, as reported by eJewishPhilanthropy:
In short, Victor, you’re wrong.
J Street took an opportunistic rap by its most virulent haters for doing nothing illegal. It has seen few, if any, consequences. Apparently, J Street’s greatest sin is having given 160,000 American Jews and over 10,000 American Jewish donors a political camp to call home.
And for that, J Street should never apologize.
1/ @KFJ even if the numbers you quote are correct (and given the revelation that JStreet’s #1 donor is a Filipina living in Hong Kong I kind of doubt that) 160000 makes about 3.2% of US Jews. And 10000…
2/ As to the 3-1 matching grants to employees of Soros Fund Charitable Foundation to give to Jewish groups, I would like to give $3 to Jewschool for every Jewschooler who throws a dollar in the air that lands on the moon.
What? No Jewschooler would ever do that? Boy am I lucky. And so is Soros.
3/ Maybe if JStreetPac would get around to giving to more than 1 Jewish US Senator, or more than 9 Jewish members of Congress it would be easier to believe in their ‘rise’ withing the Jewish community.
4/ As to the question about the LGBTQ acceptance among non-Orthodox Jews: This will simply accelerate the variance in the birthrate between the two groups, although perhaps not by much.
In the end the tendency of the Orthodox to have more than the replacement number of children will cause their numbers to exceed the number of the non-replacing non-Orthodox Jews.
The above discussion of J-Street has diverted attention from the significant questions posed in the original post.
I’ll take a stab at the LGBT question — and predict that it will have no impact at all on the Orthodox/non-Orthodox divide, although it may intensify the divide within Orthodoxy between those who live in the ghetto and those who live in the world.
Questions 4 and 5, about the emerging generation of leadership, are really one question. Yes, the younger generation will be heard, and will be grudgingly brought into the process, eventually becoming the establishment (albeit a somewhat different establishment), with a new group of Young Turks hammering on their door, with a new agenda.
KFJ — In the March/April 2010 issue of Moment Magazine Ben-Ami stated, “We got tagged as having his support, without the benefit of actually getting funded!” J Street in fact was receiving funding from Soros at this point. How is that anything less than a misrepresentation intended to mislead people?
How could any rational person read this comment as anything but a denial that Soros was funding J Street, when in fact he was donating over two hundred grand a year by then? Ben Ami, without question, intended to and did mislead people with regard to Soros’ considerable ongoing involvement. That’s why he had to issue the mea culpa.
Why are you KFJ also equivocating about this misrepresentation? Why aren’t you wondering WHY the organization you work for was misrepresenting itself to people? Why aren’t you concerned about J Street’s motives, its integrity, and its leadership?
I certainly would be.
I am NOT an AIPAC lackey and I am open to all options when it comes to the peace process, and I was actually hopeful that J Street would bring something positive to the process.
I am very disappointed, and quite frankly I am disappointed in the lack of criticism from people connected to J Street.
Also, aren’t you the least bit curious who this woman in Hong Kong is and WHY she’s giving all of this money to a lobbying group in the US?
Thanks Larry.
Curious, I find no odor to George Soros and find this line of criticism against J Street an empty argument. I also find the xenophobic drive to purge money from foreign non-Jews pretty misguided. What does it prove? That J Street is controlled by a foreign non-Jewish cabal? That it can’t be trusted to perform its central function as a critical but loving voice amidst a sea of Israel-can-do-no-wrong organizations?
I don’t get why you would buy into these opportunistic right-wing attacks.
From my perspective,
(skipping 1 because neither organization has much impact in our local community)
2)J-Street’s “rise,” which I guess is shorthand for ambivalence or outright negativity toward blindly pro-Israel positions, specifically w/r/t to government policies, has already started changing the language of Israel support in some federations. The conversation has begun to shift toward education, and away from the myth, both to produce knowledgeable young Jews unafraid to state their opinions (pro or con) about Israel once they get to campus and beyond, and to maintain the “big tent” of federation.
3) If Orthodox Jews are already involved in the greater community, the inclusion of GLBT Jews will likely impact them less than the increased number of federations who are taking a more inclusive, engaging stance w/r/t intermarried Jews. One could envision a scenario (per the joke) where an Orthodox committee member meets her counterpart, a young lesbian Jew, and remarks, “Well, at least your partner is Jewish.”
4) It would be hard for less connected Jews to make decisions about funding engagement of their peers unless they were sufficiently involved to be on those committees. Wouldn’t that make them MORE connected, though, and thus out of the demographic? Where exactly is the line? And what do you mean by less connected?
5) Younger leaders, and donors, and people in general, are looking for more accountability from the organizations to which they give money and time. That drive toward more outcome-driven funding is a sea-change from past generations. I’m sure you see it in your own decision-making – you’re not automatically setting up recurring gifts to organizations, are you (although if I’m wrong, and you are, thanks!)? Every year it’s a new decision, a new set of circumstances and needs. It’s on us – speaking for the establishment organizations – to sell you every year, and ensure your gift of time and money is rewarded with fulfilling participation and the impact of your work on the organization and the community.
Of course, if you decide to make a habit of your involvement with an organization, it’s then on you to give the same feeling to others. And so it goes.
NOTE – Please use this one and delete the first one I sent!!!
Hi Jew Guevara (another Jew with a Latino name?),
COEJL is alive and well. Hazon is focused on the individual experience and community-building whereas we focus on sustainability in Jewish institutions and being a Jewish voice on energy and environmental policy. Check out our blog – coejlblog.blog.com and our website – http://www.coejl.org/.
Btw, Federation Professional – where are you? We work with CRC’s around the country and are happen to lend a hand if you want easy ways to engage on the environment and energy policy.
Thanks Fed pro! I think you are right about the Orthodox caring more about queer Jews having Jewish partners than about the sin of mishkav zachar. In the long run.
Sybil, that is a completely inaccurate description of Hazon, which works on both the institutional level and educates on policy issues. Hazon has recently published an online food guide specifically designed for Jewish institutions to become more sustainable and Hazon is already hard at work creating materials on the next US Farm Bill. I’m glad that COEJL is still functioning but people should be aware that Hazon is not what Sybil has described.
I didn’t realize that this threat had progressed further. On the points KFJ made, see this post by Goldblog, which covers many of the relevant issues I raised. By no means am I an insider, either at Jstreet, AIPAC or the pro-Israeli community in Washington, but when even Haaretz</a” start giving negative press to Jstreet, I tend to think all that smoke means something’s burning.
To which KFJ will respond that he likes a good BBQ. Fine.
I’m still missing a complete history of COEJL… the rift with Shomrei Adamah, the struggle over centralization, conflicts over the role of chapters, the absence of individual memberships, the rejection of direct constituent advocacy, the implementation of direct advocacy, the big national conferences, the absence of national conferences, the promise to do environmental advocacy around Israel, the refusal to do environmental advocacy around Israel, the domination by a single major funding sources, the loss of funding, and finally the re-emergence as if nothing had happened.
It’s a good story, but I’ve never seen it told properly from beginning to end.
As a former activist with a local COEJL chapter, all I can say is that COEJL was and is a dead end for any individual seeking to become active in the Jewish environmental movement. And literally no well established group in the Jewish community has seen fit to support Israeli environmental NGO’s when they engage in campaigns against government decisions negatively affecting the environment. It’s very sad.
Hi Jew Guevera,
COEJL indeed has a rich and complex history which is worth telling more fully. I’ve been told by many that COEJL contributed greatly to the development of the Jewish environmental movement as well as about the types of challenges and frustrations you describe. These conversations have informed our Governance Committee’s thinking about our role now and our vision for tomorrow.
COEJL’s focus remains policy and advocacy, as well as big-picture vision and awareness raising within Jewish institutions. We are smaller than we once were but I am proud of what we’ve accomplished in this short year that I am here. We organized a letter from nine Jewish organizations to President Obama on the Land and Water Conservation Fund, we have an individual action alert currently out about it right now – http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4535 – and we’ve previously had action alerts on the Clean Air Act and Murkowski Ammendment – http://engage.jewishpublicaffairs.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1627.
This year, in conjunction with others, we set up pages to share what was going on for Shabbat Noach across the Jewish enviro spectrum – http://www.coejl.org/shabbat_noach.php; as well as participated with Hazon in a 350.org action on 10/10/10 – and we now have a website for Chanukah – http://www.coejl.org/Chanukah_program_guide.php.
We are also planning a COEJL Energy Forum in Washington DC on March 9th, which is in the works, so stay tuned on that, if you or others are interested. I would welcome direct contact if you want to be in touch further.
Shabbat Shalom.