We have closely tracked the divorce proceedings going on between American Jews and Israel; and the decision by the Netanyahu government under pressure from its religious wing not to give access to non-orthodox Jews to pray at the Western Wall is exhibit A. On this issue of Who counts as a Jew, we’re suddenly seeing an open break between largely-liberal American Jewish groups and the Taliban-style government that Netanyahu leads.
American Jewish groups are furious about the decision; the top story on NPR this last hour was that leading Jewish philanthropist Ike Fisher has demanded back $1 million he spent on Israel Bonds. As Isabel Kershner reports at the Times:
A group of Jewish leaders canceled a dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, flew to Jerusalem for an emergency meeting with the prime minister.
The issue is especially piquant for the growing movement of Jews supporting Palestinian rights. Where have all these liberal Jewish institutions been when Palestinians were getting pushed off their land, shot at, and imprisoned?
As Rabbi Brant Rosen asked on his blog yesterday, Why are the religious rights of conservative and Reform Jewish men and women so much more important than Palestinian human rights? Rosen detailed suffering in Gaza, then questioned:
[W]here is the moral outrage in liberal Jewish establishment over these cruel human rights abuses? While I certainly believe in the cause of religious freedom, I find it stunning that so many liberal-minded members of the Jewish community are more concerned with Jewish rights in a Jewish state than the basic human rights of non-Jewish children who live under its control. Such are the sorrows of Jewish political nationalism: even the more “liberal” among us seem only to be able to express that tolerance selectively.
Rosen makes an important point about what Jewish nationalism has done to Jewish political culture: turned all concerns inward.
Those values are expressed directly by Daniel Gordis, a conservative Jew and rightwing Zionist, writing “an open letter to American Jews,” in the Times of Israel. Gordis wants American Jews to get angry about the religious access question– and even boycott El Al airlines– but to keep their mouths shut about the “occupation.”
“Your job, more than anything else, is to help us stay safe and alive.”
Gordis says Israelis don’t care what Americans think about the occupation.
You can call it the “conflict.” You can call it the “occupation.” Whatever…. Your righteous indignation will get you nowhere. Israelis don’t care that you’re insulted.
Because American Jews have nothing at stake:
You don’t have skin in the game. I know you don’t like to hear it, but (with a few exceptions) you and your kids don’t assume the risks that we do. And that matters. Your kids don’t go charging into tunnels risking their lives to protect kibbutzim. You don’t lie awake at night waiting for your soldier-kid to get home from whatever s/he is doing, knowing that the only thing you know is that you can’t protect them – it’s a horrible feeling for a parent, and you’ve never felt it and never will.
This is of course the traditional bargain. Israeli Jews have greater “weight” than American Jews. As Bill Kristol said, who am I to cavalierly criticize Israeli policies on the Upper West Side when there’s no physical risk to me? Stand by your man.
As Gordis reminds us, we have to keep lobbying our government:
American Jews ought to recognize that the State of Israel is by far the most extraordinary Jewish accomplishment of the past 2,000 years, and that it has changed the existential condition of being Jewish everywhere. It also faces existential threats. Your job, more than anything else, is to help us stay safe and alive…. [W]hat you owe the Jewish people is to help us keep the bad guys at bay. Help us make sure that members of Congress understand what Israel is, the values that it shares with American democracy, the fact that the Arabs and then the Palestinians turned down peace offers time and again.
But when it comes to the Western Wall decision, Gordis wants American Jews to use the boycott tool, even to the point of refusing to normalize the Netanyahu government and threatening the existence of Israel’s air line:
I called for American Jews to begin to use the power of their purse. I’m told that American Jewish money flowing to Israel amounts to more than 5% of Israel’s GDP. That’s a huge amount of leverage…. Before the government arrived at an interim solution to the crisis, I proposed that American Jews consider withholding money they give to Israeli hospitals…
If [Netanyahu and his consuls] are part of a coalition that is willing to say that you don’t matter, why would you possibly so much as sit in the same room with them? It’s time for you to be serious. Which is why I thought that the Chicago Federation’s decision to do just that was fabulous….
I also pointed out that just by refusing to fly El Al, American Jews could bring the airline to its knees… El Al is a critical security issue for Israel. No Prime Minister can let it fail, and El Al survives only on the margins. Simply by buying tickets with United or Delta, American Jews can create a huge problem for any Prime Minister.
This is today the peculiar situation of American Jews and Israel. The lobby is essential to Israel’s survival. We are never to deploy that power in criticism of Israeli foreign policy. Even when the country practices Jim Crow across the West Bank and slaughters thousands in Gaza, we should fight the Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel hammer and tongs. But if American Jews’ freedom to worship at the western wall is compromised, then we should use our boycott power mercilessly.
As Rosen writes, these narrow nationalist values are not liberal. They are why young Jews are so weary of the Jewish establishment. They want a less parochial understanding of what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century.
“Where is the moral outrage in liberal Jewish establishment?”
Rabbi Rosen answers his own question in this article:
https://rabbibrant.com/2017/02/19/on-zionisms-marriage-of-convenience-to-anti-semitism/
“Zionism has had a cozy, if somewhat Faustian relationship with anti-Semitism since its very origins.”
Think about it. Don’t make me spell it out for you.
I was quite offended by Gordis’s piece, but to beat up on gordis in front of the crowd gathered in mw comments is not that attractive.
Clearly the current situation in america, that is the trump presidency, is the foremost danger to democracy in america. when he fires mueller the pressure on republicans to act as if the law means something will mount.
netanyahu’s policy on the occupied territories is the result of 50 years of evolution, backed up by revisionist ideology and the security doctrine combined. it is of primary concern to most israelis and the offer of turning the west bank into a second hamastan or hezbollah territory is not something most israelis endorse. But , because of the deep penetration of the settler occupancy, an explainable policy regarding a military occupation has been turned into an unexplainable policy of a settler occupation. Nonetheless the Israeli preference for the status quo regarding the west bank is not something that is superficial.
netanyahu’s policy regarding the kotel compromise has zero to do with the will of the israeli people. it is purely coalition politics. and as such it is vulnerable to a pressure campaign.
The lack of support of particularly young american jewish opinion regarding israel particularly regarding the west bank is merely a sign of the future abandonment of israel by the democratic party. gordis’s bully pulpit will change no one’s mind. israel will soon be abandoned by the democratic party. but i mean 12 to 28 years. that’s soon to me.
“A group of Jewish leaders canceled a dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. The president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, flew to Jerusalem for an emergency meeting with the prime minister.” (Isabel Kershner)
This situation is not without precedent. According to J.J. Goldberg, in 1988 in a sop to the Israeli Orthodox Jews and the US based Lubavitcher Rabbi, a proposed amendment to the Israeli basic law concerning the law of return as applied to (primarily Reform) converts to Judaism, which, for all practical purposes, would have little except symbolic effect, was seen as a declaration of war by the US Jewish establishment. To make a long story short, American organized Jewry mobilized and the proposed amendment to the ISRAELI basic law got stomped into the ground. This has little to do with religious freedom and everything to do with power relationships. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
PHIL- (Daniel Cordis quote)- “American Jews ought to recognize that the State of Israel is by far the most extraordinary Jewish accomplishment of the past 2,000 years, and that it has changed the existential condition of being Jewish everywhere.”
This is an incredible statement which could be the basis for extensive discussion. Let us begin by noting that in typical Zionist fashion, Cordis gives short shrift to 2000 years of real Jewish history. The reality is that real Jewish accomplishment during the Diaspora far exceeds anything which occurred prior to the destruction of the second temple. Commenter Yoni Falic has begun to give us a feel for some of this. What was noteworthy about the mythical kingdom of David other than the killing of non-Jews? What is noteworthy about Israel except its ideological appeal to Diaspora Jews?
Cordis has a point about changing the existential condition of being Jewish. Thanks to Zionism, Jewish assimilation is no longer a threat to their “Jewishness”. Now, instead of visible Jewish tribalism, Zionist based invisible Jewish “kinship” provides the basis for Jewish solidarity, mutual support, and mutual defense against much exaggerated anti-Semitism. And anti-Semitism itself has been redefined to include virtually everything “corrosive” of organized Jewry’s Zionist agenda. And this manufactured kinship and resultant de facto nepotism has worked quite well for the Jewish Zionist elites. Perhaps that is why so many Jewish billionaires support Israel. And I have yet to hear of even one Jewish billionaire who is an anti-Zionist.
Some of us American goys are really weary of the Jewish Establishment; we see it as a corruptive force against the American values, humanist values, we were brought up to hold dear.