The fight is breaking out between liberal Zionist and non-Zionist Jews, at last.
The Presbyterian vote to divest from three companies doing business in the occupation last week had the active support of the non-Zionist organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, which then made it on to the front page of the New York Times.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former head of the Reform Jewish organization, has now singled out JVP for an attack in Haaretz. Yoffie’s spiteful tone is evident in the headline: “How a radical anti-Israel Jewish group colluded with the U.S. Presbyterian Church.” A group of “young people in black T-shirts” had led the Presbyterians “astray,” alienating it from the Jewish community, Yoffie said. “Like virtually all Jewish leaders, I am not too happy with the Presbyterian church.”
I am not any happier with Jewish Voice for Peace, a small Jewish activist group that was only too happy to help the Presbyterians along…
none of this would have worked without the collusion of Jewish Voice for Peace, which has a tradition of cloaking extremist principles in ambiguous language.
Now Rebecca Vilkomerson and Donna Nevel of JVP have responded, with a great letter to Haaretz saying that the Reforms have walked away from their own legacy of supporting equal rights during the American fight against Jim Crow. The crushing sentence here is their statement that the Reform Jews offered not one concrete suggestion during the weeklong Presbyterian assembly about how to end the near-50-year-long occupation. No, the Reforms just urged the Presbyterians to meet with Israel’s rightwing prime minister.
Vilkomerson and Nevel:
Rabbi Eric Yoffie refuses to grapple with the reality of the occupation or to address the role Jewish American institutions play in repressing concrete actions to end Israel’s ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians. How sad, and revealing, that instead of engaging with the deeply critical message and moral issues being raised by the Presbyterian vote to divest, he resorts to ad hominem attacks against Jewish Voice for Peace and the Presbyterian Church.
We honor the deliberate and thoughtful process that led the church to vote to divest from three American companies, in accordance with their ethical investment principles. We were proud to play our part in supporting their process, but the decision was their own. To suggest otherwise is insulting and indicative of Yoffie’s approach to interfaith partnerships.
Throughout the weeklong General Assembly, no one from Yoffie’s movement made a single concrete suggestion about how to end the occupation — the growth of the settlements, the daily indignities or the structural violence against Palestinians. Instead, they used their voice to attempt to threaten and bully the Presbyterians into voting against their conscience.
The Union for Reform Judaism prominently displays a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel on its website. The Reform movement is justifiably proud of taking action during the civil rights struggle. How sad that the leadership of the Reform movement today finds itself defending inaction, and therefore promoting injustice. Is the movement’s only response to the Presbyterian vote to attack Jewish Voice for Peace rather than recognize the merits of heartfelt and fact-based deliberations?
Despite Yoffie’s protestations, Jewish Voice for Peace is increasingly attractive to more and more Jewish Americans, including many within the Reform movement. In fact, we welcome new members daily. How beautiful to see so many Jews want to be part of an organization that supports equal rights and justice for Palestinians, Israelis and all people — in the best of Jewish tradition.
JVP’s greatest offense here was getting into the New York Times, i.e., edging into the mainstream. The viciousness of Yoffie’s attack reflects the fact that it is essential for the Israel lobby to be a monolith, to speak in one voice, so as to maintain U.S. support for a project that Americans can’t be trusted to support without pressure. That’s why there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between J Street and AIPAC these days. Once Jews speak in opposition on this issue, politicians will get to take different sides. You’ve got to close ranks. And smear JVP.
Rick Jacobs is Reform too, isn’t he ?
One of the problems with Judaism in the US is that all the major orgs are Zionist and they all toe the hasbara line . They were all cleared of whatever moral opposition to YESHA existed a long time ago by donor pressure and careerism. At the time it perhaps looked as though history was over and that everything would work out.
Now they are in a bind. Even the right on ones like the Reform crowd have to turn around and support torture and home demolitions.
Whatever they thinks marks them out is irrelevant in the bigger moral picture.
http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/what_makes_rabbi_rick_jacobs_tick
“There are things we don’t stand for. Once, when I was leading a bar mitzvah service, a very traditional group of people walked in wearing black fedoras — Orthodox Jews walking into a Reform synagogue — and one of the guys said to me, “Would it be OK if we just ask the women to sit on this side and the men on that side?” And I said, “I actually can’t do that.” I can give you a hundred examples of where we will not compromise who we are”
Living off 60s activism while ignoring the great evil of today
“RJ: We’ve been the backbone of social justice in America. One of my predecessors, Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, carried a Torah scroll with Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. Barack Obama spoke to our Biennial in D.C. two years ago and said, “I would not be the president of the United States were it not for the Religious Action Center that helped to blaze a trail. …” So we’ve been leading. And that’s not just talking about our role within Judaism — that’s our role in the community and in the world. When people say, “I want the Reform movement to stay focused on religion and not do all the political stuff,” I say, “You want to pull out social justice from Judaism? You can, but you basically don’t have Judaism left.””
You basically don’t have Judaism left if it can’t support human rights for Palestinians.
And give me a sweaty but honest and decent Orthodox any time over a Reform hypocrite.
Rick is such a rich source of hypocrisy
http://www.jewishjournal.com/hollywoodjew/item/what_makes_rabbi_rick_jacobs_tick
“If you’re not vulnerable in the world, and you don’t open your heart and feel the pain and say, “Is there anything I can do to help that pain?” then you’re not alive.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLUJ4fF2HN4
Certainly someone who is morally frozen is not alive, but neither are they dead
They are in a third state – hasbara biostasis is the term I would use to describe it …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYdN3ghyQ4
Is Judaism today like Shinto before 1945? Of course, not all followers believe in the ideas of The Way of A Warrior, but the same was probably true in Japan.
This is a major endorsement for Jewish Voice for Peace. Rabbi Yoffie is still one of the top rabbis in America. And he credits JVP with pushing the Presbyterian vote through.
Per Yoffie,where would the Christians be without the Jews?
The photo caption should be Abraham Joshua Heschel, and it would be appropiate to add “Rabbi”. Likewise, for Martin Luther King, “Rev.”