When Rahm Emanuel was named chief of staff, there was a lot of satisfaction expressed by the Israel lobby and the Israeli media that the Jewish son of an Israeli, a man who had served at Israeli soldiers’ side in the Gulf War, was now taking up a position so close to Obama. Also David Axelrod was Emanuel’s good friend, and he is also Jewish, and he had the other office closest to the president.
Did their religion matter? I think it did. I think it was a factor in the Obama administration’s caving to Netanyahu. They both operated in a Jewish world, to a bigger or lesser degree (Lester Crown, Ari Emanuel, Penny Pritzker, etc). That surely framed their worldview. Maybe they overestimated the strength of the Israel lobby in American politics. Maybe they deferred to it.
Well now Emanuel and Axelrod are gone/leaving. Does it matter? I think it does. I think it may signal a change in the weather. Hey and look– Ron Kampeas is on to the same issue, from a pro-Israel standpoint.
The visuals are not unimportant, said a top Jewish aide to a senior congressman.
“People like to have someone who looks like them near power,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “You say ‘Shanah Tovah,’ their faces light up.”
Also: Ellen Weiss is out at NPR. She was the top news executive, and now she’s gone, resigning in the wake of the Juan Williams blue. Weiss is married to David Saperstein of the Reform Jewish Religious Action Center (RAC). The rabbi had nothing to say about Gaza, per the great rbguy at DailyKos.
Rabbi, it is my concern that the RAC’s lack of public outcry and advocacy regarding this crisis removes your legitimacy to discuss humanitarian concers elsewhere in the world. If you, the RAC, and the URJ (Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish religious movement in North America), cannot, or will not, use your power and significant influence with the Israeli government to alleviate the suffering that they have assisted in creating and maintaining, why would citizens or international leaders consider listening to your requests with respect to the behavior of other govenments.
Did Ellen Weiss’s marriage to someone with a giant moral blindspot affect NPR’s coverage? I bet it did. NPR has been lame-o on the issue. Will that coverage change now? I think there’s a chance.
Call it cultural, call it generational, call it the politicization of Judaism, (as young Jew Brandon Davis, who I’d trust in any position anywhere, nailed the problem), or call it messianism among successful people who like to think of themselves as secular. But there’s got to be a way to talk about the Jewish presence in the Establishment without redbaiting.
