Beinart keeps on delivering aftershocks. Trying to deflect his attack on the Jewish establishment’s hawkishness on Israel, Alana Newhouse, editor of Tablet, stakes the absurd claim at Foreign Policy forum that there is a ton of diversity in the Jewish community and "no monolithic Jewish establishment."
[There’s] a tendency among Jewish intellectuals and activists on both sides of the political spectrum to conjure up this dichotomy, in often wildly distorted ways-to imagine the existence of cultural monoliths oppressing them and preventing them from speaking out; if only this or that monolith didn’t exist, the saw goes, everyone would hold the exact same views I do. For the right wing, it is a Jewish establishment that fails to stand up to Obama, donates overwhelmingly to liberal causes, exiles conservatives to the political and communal margins, and keeps their op-eds from appearing in the New York Times. For the left, it is a Jewish establishment that worships Netanyahu, encourages right-wing feelings, marginalizes progressive voices, and keeps their views from appearing in the New York Times.
In contrast, the American Jewish community itself is marked by nothing so much as diversity, nuance and internal shades of difference (two Jews/three synagogues, anyone?)
This is absurd because you have never ever read a piece in favor of the right of return in any Jewish establishment publication. That would be a real diversity. Heck, our refugees resulted in the creation of Israel; their refugees have festered for 62 years. Can anyone make that argument? No. Orthodoxy on an issue seen as central to tribal life. I wonder how many pro-BDS pieces Newhouse has run at Tablet? Oh and cultural monolith, has she ever published Tony Judt or Jewish Voice for Peace’s leaders, Rebecca Vilkomerson and Cecilie Surasky. Surasky helps run the site Muzzlewatch. How did it get that name? Because of Jewish orthodoxy on this issue, which we are breaking up. And still we are not represented in the "cultural monolith" that Newhouse says doesn’t exist.
