Washington
Jewish Week covered
a Jews-for-Obama rally in D.C. Saturday night. At this event, a young
progressive named Shira Robinson said better than I have that Obama’s efforts
to shore up his standing in the traditional Jewish community are alienating
Jewish "progressives."
"There’s more than one
Jewish voice," and that other voice believes in "the need for a just
solution [to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], not just a peaceful
solution," Adams Morgan resident Shira Robinson said to enthusiastic
cheers from the crowd.[Weiss emphasis]In an interview, Robinson, a history
and international affairs professor at George Washington University, said
Obama has "gone out of his way" to placate the "mainstream"
community while disappointing "progressives" like herself.
Nonetheless, she said she and all the progressive Jews she knew were still
planning on voting for the senator.
I’d note that Robinson when at the U. of
Iowa was interested in the history of "settler colonialism" and
the imposition of military rule on Palestinian Arabs by the fledgling Jewish
state. I assume that she is a post-Zionist. Justice in the
Middle
East
–not just a peace process. Countless younger Jews are coming
to these core political issues in a new way. I know that the Jewish
establishment’s adherence to Israeli apartheid caused me to be alienated from
my people. Voices
like Shira Robinson’s fill me with pride, they are redeeming Jewry.
