[Update: Now eight federations or Jewish Community Relations Coucnils (JCRCs) have issued statements against Bannon. You can follow the list here at http://nevershtadlanus.com. Will the national umbrella follow suit?] This monring, Jewish institutions are getting an earful from members nation-wide rightly disgusted by President-elect Trump’s anti-Semitic appointee Steven Bannon.
Yet among those still silent, the Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization of local Jewish federations known as JFNA, has yet to make an official statement. Many Jewish organizations, including local federations such as Seattle’s and the Anti-Defamation League, have demanded Trump fire Bannon. Earlier this week, JFNA even offered their chief lobbyist William Daroff to the Trump transition team for “any assistance in the transition during the next 10 weeks and beyond.”
Reportedly, during today’s final day of the JFNA’s convention, their leadership has begun reconsidering in light of the grassroots pushback. The peittion currently has 600+ signatures and growing. The full text of the petition reads as follows — click here to add your name.

Call on JFNA to Condemn the Appointment of White Nationalist Stephen K Bannon

As United States Senator from New Jersey Cory Booker said, “[e]levating Steve Bannon—a man who leads a website that promotes truly radical views about race and religion, whose appointment was celebrated by neo-Nazis and denounced by the Anti-Defamation League, and who has been condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike—to one of the highest positions in the White House installs a man with fringe and dangerous ideologies just steps from the Oval Office.”
History has taught us that staying silent is both unacceptable and dangerous. As American Jews, we have a duty to speak up on behalf of each other and our fellow minorities. We call on JFNA to join prominent politicians, organizations and citizens from across the nation in denouncing Donald Trump’s appointment of Stephen K. Bannon as White House chief strategist and senior counselor. With hate crimes on the rise, we must address this as an issue of our collective safety. Having Stephen Bannon as a key strategist in the White House sends a clear message to hate groups that their belief system is no longer fringe, but now accepted. As an organization that is dedicated to securing the Jewish future by empowering community members to take charge of their Jewish lives and provide leadership to their community, we take you at your word and assume that you will keep your pledge to empower and listen to those of us that speak up.
Show us that we can count on you not to stand by idly. As a prominent agency in the American Jewish community, and our country, we ask you to oppose publicly the presence of Stephen K. Bannon in the Trump administration. We must hear your voice leading the call for Bannon’s immediate dismissal. Please do not let down our children, our families or the American Jewish community.
“Action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all.” ― Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1986
Click here to sign