Three responses to the post on Michael Lerner yesterday based on the New Jersey Jewish News report: 1, from an anonymous Jewish critic, 2, from Jeff Blankfort, 3, from Jack Ross.
1. Lerner is not "going wobbly," Lerner has always been wobbly. He's an enormous PEPster (Progressive except for Palestine). He's one of those Jews who thinks Israel
was paradise until 1967. He's against Right of Return. Ask him how the war started
in '48. I have it in a book somewhere. I went to this Tikkun meeting,
and we each got a copy of the rabbi's book, "Healing Israel/Palestine. " Only the cover iconography had only Jewish messages [Mt. Sinai] Unfortunately I no longer have my copy, but it had an amazing passage
that said something like, "Now imagine if the Palestinians had greeted
the Jewish refugees with open arms instead of tried to kick them out." Something about it all being a "moral failure" on the part of the Palestinians to oppose Jewish immigration.
The
whole experience was like joining the Raelians. Whenever they mentioned Lerner, they were like "the rabbi" all ecstatically. I never went
back.
2. Blankfort:
In founding Tikkun, he took advantage of a genuine desire in the
liberal Jewish community to produce a publication to compete with
Commentary and Moment and in that he did make a positive contribution.
He went too far in his Zionism during the first war on Iraq when he wrote an op-ed in the LA Times saying we should go to war to protect Israel.
(Reprinted in the Washington Jewish Week in 1990, the headline was, "Escalate Now The US must smash Iraq's offensive military capacity"). He and Todd Gitlin have made a mantra of complaining about
anti-Semitism on the left which stems not only from its Israel-bashing,
says Lerner, but that it won't recognize that Jews are among the
oppressed peoples of the world. For a short time, some years back, by
some strange coincidence, I was getting his emails which were fairly
innocuous except for the one in which he mentioned his usual speaking
fee. Spreading spiritual love doesn't come cheap. Which
brings me to the question: What would Jesus charge?
3. Ross:
I don't think he's going wobbly exactly – rather I suspect he just has
so much invested in juxtaposing his identity to what may or may not
have been red herrings ten or twenty years ago and certainly are today,
that is the "hate America/hate Israel"
left. I think that he either doesn't quite realize or else does and
can't quite deal with the fact that it's increasingly mainstream
liberals who are concerned about Israel's behavior–who could care less about "the left"– and that he's not totally
prepared for that situation.
There are a couple of ironies to
this. The first is that it's the flip side of what never ceases to
annoy me about you and so many of your contributors, obsessing about
"PEPs" and why Amy Goodman
or Chomsky aren't out there on something; this concern is irrelevant
when, for all practical purposes, the whole of mainstream
left-of-center opinion, save for the increasingly transparent New
Republic crowd, are no further to the right than J Street.
The
second irony is the opportunity this potentially represents to Lerner,
which is that the "left," which represents the biggest threat to his
values, is not the sectarian left he's been at odds with for so long,
but rather the liberal blogosphere whose values are overwhelmingly
materialistic and vehemently opposed to those of a true religious left
which Lerner represents. If he had the vision, he could become a
leader of this progressive alternative with broader vision.
Never forget that the Jewish press will very often exaggerate a
situation such as this to make a Jewish progressive appear to be more
kosher then they actually are – exactly why they take this approach to Lerner and Rabbis for Human Rights and a more iron-fisted approach to Norman Finkelstein and Jewish Voice for Peace remains somewhat mysterious, but nevertheless it should be noted.
It
remains to be seen how this will all play out, I certainly don't feel
that Lerner's instincts are to tack right but I can understand the
source of his confusion. It remains a season of hope. Yes we can.
Also, he's not a Zionist – he has argued that there is some justice on the side of the Israelis as a people as a legacy of the Holocaust, but he has no truck with Zionism
as an ideology. He specifically attacks "the so called state of the
Jewish people" for engaging in militarism and other anathema to Jewish
values.
Ross adds later: I was not aware of Lerner's antics during the First Gulf War
but I'm not too surprised, and yes he certainly has all the human
failings we should expect of any charismatic religious leader. More to
the point, he probably was pretty much in the Clinton-era Israeli-ish
communitarian mainstream, but he's hardly the only Jewish progressive
who was where the right wing of the Labor Party
was in the 90s and in a very different place today. And we must not
forget that he embraced Walt and Mearsheimer which was a courageous
thing to do when he did it.
All, you've gotta see this: Why should they get a state? Modern Palestinian demand for state stems from anti-Semitic desire to harass Jews Hagai Segal But in fact, it’s not so odd. The demand for the establishment of a Palestinian state, speaking of the recent Durban II conference, is another type of anti-Semitic trick against us. http://www.ynet.co.il/english/Ext/Comp/ArticleLay...
They didn't feel they could post in the original topic? Why force people to reiterate prior comments in a common thread?
The original post was two comments. Blankfort's got added. What does Finkelstein charge? The only valid criticism of Lerner's position that I can see is that it changes in emphasis, about as frequently as Phil's actually.
A rabbi! Someone is listening to a rabbi? This is 2009 AD, people, not 2009BC
I listened to Lerner debate Aimee Smith for about an hour at UMass Boston. He is about as racist as they come. From The Emotional Violence of Israel Advocacy:
Lerner needs to stop whining. Eastern European Ethnic Ashkenazim were a privileged group that went destructive because they had less power, wealth, and status than they thought they deserved: Jewish Financial Aggression, Worldwide Economic Nakba.
What's the "white man's burden" here? I already asked on another of Phil's posts today. It's really an irony that hasbara people equate affirmative action for jews with the same for palestinians, or indeed, arabs in general. Seems oddly similar to the one sided demands made on the ever decreasing white population in the USA.
A new name. Lerner is a Zionist, one that states that Israel should be good, but still should be. By "the left", I expect that Lerner means those that attack only, failing to orient their dissent towards either a goal, or consistently contrasted to stated and emphasized permanent principles. I'm certain that he does not think highly of those whose most "progressive" response is to harrass.
I may throw my wife out this week. Ah..the lovely orchids. BUT SOMETIMES THEY MAKE ME SAD WITH THEIR LITTLE ORCHID FACES! My wife has done nothing wrong and I resent the implication that she has. Israelis are mostly homosexual Jews who are striving for their rights. Gaza invaded them, along with the Dominican Republic. Israel has simply responded. I have had zero time to do any pruning and have neglected the yard in general. Oddly enough, the azaleas are thriving. I want Israel to thrive. Did. Dad.Gag. Radar. Can some of you add to this list? I'm afraid of turtles. –Richard Witty
You meant 2009 BCE, right?
Phil: What does Rykart have to do to get banned? I think your policy is absolutely fucking hypocritical, and really nothing more than an excuse to ban your most talented critics. Fuck you, Phil.
Even though Michael Lerner seems off now, I remember that he was critical of Israel in some ways when it was inappropriate to criticize.I imagine that someone of Witty's stature would have called him an anti-Semite when in fact he loves Israel.
When does Chris Berel & Stools, and SOG, if they are all not his sock puppets, have to do to get banned? They have no talent in apologizing for Israeli actions. It's boring having to put up with their flimsy road bumps on the way to a humane solution for all. We see they lust after Phil's shika wife even as they denigrate her. How stereotypical and boring–yet again.
"Now imagine if the Palestinians had greeted the Jewish refugees with open arms instead of tried to kick them out." Richard Witty has found has guru! I bet just being in his presence causes spontaneous ziocaine rushes. But this is the "good" ziocaine, not that "bad" ziocaine. When you get enough of that in your system you see, as Witty does, the Zionists and the Palestinians sharing the Holy Land in peace and harmony. Cause they all live together but occupy different dimensions! Isn't that wonderful? See, nobody gets hurt that way! Now, all the Palestinians need is, well, maybe a sort of Ghandi-Hawking, to lead them there. Where, oh, where, is the Palestinian Stephen Hawking!?!
"By "the left", I expect that Lerner means those that attack only…" Yeah, Lerners not a Rabbi, he's the Red Queen! "When I say it word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, and nothing else." "I'm certain that he does not think highly of those whose most "progressive" response is to harrass." Why do Zionist-supporters have such extraordinary mind-reading abilities. It must be a gift from God, to be used in the service of ZIonism! Witty, for God's sake, and really, for Zionism's sake, get a prescription from a sympathetic doctor. It's really embarassing to see what you do to yourself to get a ziocaine fix.
Witty always reads our malicious minds. We always just harass for the fun of it. He always is more objective, lays out good solutions.
Rabbi Lerner has always been a "liberal Zionist", and bottom line he will always be a Zionist.
Always was and likely always will be. Its what makes him progressive rather than reactionary. Loving and wanting to improve, rather than hating and wanting to harm.
Israel is an immigrant-based ethnocracy that was founded on ethnic cleansing, and depends on "demographic balance" – i.e. maintaining an overwhelming Jewish majority by whatever means necessary in order to maintain itself as a Jewish state. Israel has never been good, and can never be good as long as it insists on being an ethnocracy.