Jack Ross responds to earlier post on the politics of J Street and the Obama administration:
I just caught Isi Liebler of the Jerusalem Post on Shalom TV, comparing J Street in its appeals to Obama to Jewish communists defending Stalin during his purges. Interestingly, he basically said Obama is alright but Rahm and Axelrod are pushing him in this direction and may therefore be among history’s greatest traitors to the Jewish people. He made a point in that discussion of also asserting that Dennis Ross has been completely marginalized.
All you say about the big picture is true, but I was going to focus on the Jewish organizational picture. Specifically, I would refer you to the recent lament by Michael Lerner about his exclusion from J Street. Now, no doubt a big piece of it is his ego, and in any case he compares it to the cold shoulder given to the antiwar movement once Democrats were united against Vietnam.
But Lerner hints at a bigger strategy J Street seems to have up its sleeve. Just as I once heard that they plan to flip the relatively moderate Jewish Democrats in Congress their way and thereby isolate the wings, such as they are, they seem to be committed to the same strategy in the Jewish organizational world.
Specifically, they seem to be giving short shrift to the cadre of progressive rabbis epitomized by Rabbis for Human Rights and are instead, based on a perusing of their advisory board, most aggressively reaching out to Reform rabbis. If they could successfully flip the URJ their way, which is now around twice the size of the Conservative movement, and certain other dominoes fell in turn, this, combined with the favor of Obama, would amount to nothing less than a palace coup in the American Jewish officialdom.
I have to ultimately withhold judgment on the wisdom of this strategy because we are in uncharted waters. And moreover, the winning of hearts and minds to a progressive Jewish identity and future is not J Street’s job, nor should it be.
As to your declaration that we are the fringe and represent no more than 5% – yes, absolutely, but both we and the center take for granted the mushy 15-20% between us.
