There is growing consensus in the organized Jewish community, reports Stewart Ain at the NY Jewish Week, that it’s ok for Jews to call for a boycott of settlement products so long as you don’t target Israel itself or criticize Israel too much. The group Jewish Voice for Peace, which calls for targeted boycott, is being excommunicated, the piece explains, because it declines to endorse Zionism, which is still a religious principle within the organized American Jewish community, no dissent tolerated. Other infractions? JVP led the heckling of the rightwing Netanyahu in New Orleans last year, and a chapter invited Chomsky to speak and he used the word “apartheid.”
The piece quotes Martin Raffel, of the Jewish Federations in Chicago, who is overseeing a multimillion-dollar Jewish communal effort (dubbed the Israel Action Network, to counter “delegitimizaton” of Israel. Note below (my emphasis) that Raffel acknowledges that young American Jews have no reason to believe in the need for a Jewish state, so they must be brainwashed to do so.
[I]t was a combination of positions and actions that “pushes JVP over the line,” [Raffel] said.
Among them, Raffel said, is JVP’s “unwillingness to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, its demonstrated support for the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement — history has shown it goes beyond boycott of settlements — and the tactics JVP employs of disrupting the speeches of Israeli officials.”
He was referring to the actions of five young JVP Jewish supporters who interrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last October while he was addressing the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans. They yelled such things as, “The settlements delegitimize Israel,” before they were hustled out of the room.
“Those are positions that are outside the mainstream Jewish positions with respect to Israel,” Raffel said. “Israel is damaged as a consequence of their actions. … I distinguish them from members of our community who are struggling with reconciling Israel’s dual nature as both a Jewish and a democratic state.”
Many younger Jews “growing up in an open, pluralistic America may have a hard time with that concept,” he said. “Although 98 percent of this country is Christian, we would not define it that way. We are all citizens and no one ethnic or religious group has a different status in America. Israel is unique; it has a dual identity. It is a nation-state of the Jewish people and a state that serves all its citizens in a non-discriminatory fashion. We have an obligation to provide education and experiential opportunities to help young people work through the process of becoming comfortable with Israel as a democratic and Jewish state. Birthright is an example of how to do that,” Raffel said, referring to the program that provides free trips to Israel to young Jews.
And if there is any one issue that “removes one from the Jewish communal tent,” Raffel said, it is the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish democratic state.
Thus, he said, one can disagree with such Jewish artists as Theodore Bikel and Daniel Barenboim for their boycott of Ariel’s newly opened theater but “not recognizing Israel as a Jewish democratic state is a completely different story.”…
More:
In December, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life adopted guidelines that clearly state Hillel “will not partner with, house, or host organizations, groups or speakers that … deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish and democratic state with secure and recognized borders; delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel; support boycott of, divestment from, or sanctions against the State of Israel; exhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers.”
In addition to JVP’s support of a boycott of Israeli goods, [Brandeis Hillel’s Andrea] Wexler said the campus chapter brought in controversial speakers. Among them was Noam Chomsky, the author and political activist who, she said, told students that “Israel is acting like an apartheid state in its handling of the Palestinian people.”
“We don’t want to support anything that supports divestment or a degradation of the State of Israel,” she said, adding that Hillel’s decision received mixed support on campus….
[Cecilie] Surasky said the JVP, which was formed 14 years ago and first hired staff seven years ago, has five campus chapters and another six in formation. The Brandeis chapter was the first to seek Hillel affiliation, she said.
Hmmm…. good organizing possibilities…
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis, said one of the last times the issue of who is in and who is out in the American Jewish community was debated came after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when an organization called Breira [alternative] was formed. It advocated making territorial concessions to the Palestinians and said the national aspirations of the Palestinian people should be recognized in order to achieve lasting peace.
“We look back and are surprised that a position that is today [widely accepted] was so controversial in its day,” he said. “Will we look back in 50 years and say the same thing about JVP? I can’t tell you.”
Yes.
