The lasting image I'll have of yesterday's conference on Jews against the war 6 years after the fact will be of Rabbi David Saperstein of the Union for Reform Judaism going on at length and almost angrily, citing Hebrew words about just-law theory, to explain why URJ basically supported the Iraq War in 2002. He will rationalize this till the end of time, using as many Hebrew words that I can't understand as he pleases. And I will always believe that there was a protect-Israel component in his thinking, and an ignore-the-wicked-occupation component.
And so now, 6 years later, they're agonized over their complicity in this disaster. Writes a friend, who attended two sessions I didn't:
That whole event had a surreal quality — hashing this stuff out 5-6 years after the fact. In one of
the big sessions downstairs the woman representing the national Reform
organization – Rabbi Marla Feldman – told the crowd in a
self-congratulatory tone that they had opted to take a public stand
against the war in …. 2007. Back in 2002 or 2003 they laid out
parameters (multi-lateralism, trying diplomacy first), she said, by
which they would NOT oppose the war. She seemed contented with this.
In the plenary with Arthur Waskow,
there was a repeated assumption by the panel members that
"anti-Israelism and anti-semitism" is pretty widespread on "the Left"
and Jewish groups had to find ways to combat it or just swallow hard
and look the other way at antiwar protests. The odd thing was that the
assumption wasnt unpacked at all: when had they specifically
encountered anti-semitism (and I don't doubt they have — but how
widespread is it, really?); and, more importantly, how the f*ck do they
DEFINE "anti-Israelism." I think and hope that everyone at that
conference does not define anti-Israelism the same way. But these
statements were just allowed to stand at that panel. I ended up leaving
early. The portion I saw leads me to believe that come the next crisis
— which will come, as Jeremy Ben-Ami said — these big Jewish groups
may well sit it out again over discomfort on the Israel issue.
the big sessions downstairs the woman representing the national Reform
organization – Rabbi Marla Feldman – told the crowd in a
self-congratulatory tone that they had opted to take a public stand
against the war in …. 2007. Back in 2002 or 2003 they laid out
parameters (multi-lateralism, trying diplomacy first), she said, by
which they would NOT oppose the war. She seemed contented with this.
In the plenary with Arthur Waskow,
there was a repeated assumption by the panel members that
"anti-Israelism and anti-semitism" is pretty widespread on "the Left"
and Jewish groups had to find ways to combat it or just swallow hard
and look the other way at antiwar protests. The odd thing was that the
assumption wasnt unpacked at all: when had they specifically
encountered anti-semitism (and I don't doubt they have — but how
widespread is it, really?); and, more importantly, how the f*ck do they
DEFINE "anti-Israelism." I think and hope that everyone at that
conference does not define anti-Israelism the same way. But these
statements were just allowed to stand at that panel. I ended up leaving
early. The portion I saw leads me to believe that come the next crisis
— which will come, as Jeremy Ben-Ami said — these big Jewish groups
may well sit it out again over discomfort on the Israel issue.
