Blaming Israel, Ignoring Radical Islam at J Street’s National Conference
The first session of J. Street’s 2nd National Conference has just come to an end. The first plenary session, held at the Washington Convention Center, was attended by about 2000 delegates, many of them — at least 500 — young people from J Street chapters at different campuses across the country.
The main speaker was Rabbi David Saperstein, director and counsel of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. After his presentation, the organization honored three “heroes”: journalist Peter Beinart, Israeli activist Sara Benninga, and Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a physician whose three daughters lost their lives during the Gaza war in 2009.
Rabbi Saperstein began by laying out what he said was the main focus of J Street. There are two visions of America: that which sees the government as an enemy — a clear allusion to the Tea Party and Republicans — and that which sees the government as the agency which carries out the ethical needs of people who live in society. Peace, he argued, would arrive through those who lived true Jewish values: those of “social justice,” which God required. One could not, the rabbi said, fulfill the destiny demanded by God and be holy, unless one fought for “justice, peace and equality.” In other words, Saperstein was essentially arguing that to be Jewish, one has to be on the left or be a liberal. The reason Jews still exist as a people, he argued, was that they were called to help shape a better and more hopeful world, by feeding the hungry, speaking out against injustice, and working on behalf of a fair wage for working people. What any of this had to do with Israel might be a question those not in J Street are asking themselves.
Jews, he continued, have a thirst for social justice. They worked to develop standards for just war, and strive to use moral means when fighting a war. That means giving full rights to Israeli Arabs and working for a free and viable Palestinian state living alongside a Jewish state in peace. One could use the military in the short term to fight Israel’s enemies, but, he warned, a military approach could not defeat terrorism.
He then made an assertion some would challenge. Israel, he said — ignoring the reality that terrorist attacks in Israel have declined tremendously since Israel built the security wall — had fewer attacks in the last few years of the Oslo Accords. The only way to achieve peace, he told the audience, was to make a real two-state solution take place. He said that both the U.S. and Israel had to have this as their policy, and Israel had to be pressured not to expand any of its settlements. American supporters of Israel, therefore, had to criticize policies of the Israeli government they felt were wrong, since that was in the best long-term interests of Israel itself. We could not be, he said, “idle bystanders of Israel’s role.” J Street, he told them to applause, was the single greatest contribution made by the American Jewish community in years.
After softening up the audience with constant praise of their group, Saperstein suddenly turned and presented a tactical criticism that did not go over well with the surprised audience. How, he asked, should we apply our values? How do we decide when to make tactical decisions that do not have great support in America’s Jewish community? “When,” he asked, “do we push the envelope?” Saperstein then let the audience know he was referring to the organization’s recent decision to favor the recent UN resolution condemning Israel, which the Obama administration vetoed in the United Nations.
J Street, he told the delegates, was a group of the center-left that embodied people on various parts of that spectrum. They could not win their fight, he suggested, unless they kept the center and got more, not less, support from it. By not supporting the U.S. veto, he told them, they became “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Many centrists who had supported them have broken ranks and dropped out of J Street. “We,” he said, “made them move away from us.” J Street therefore pushed the mainstream of the Jewish community away from them, rather than towards them. This meant that when they said the right things, they would have little impact, since the Jewish community would not trust them.
Saying that he understood that J Street’s leaders made a tough call, Saperstein argued that if they had supported the veto, they would have been in a position to wage a successful call for a new movement in America to oppose Israel’s settlements. Now they were undercutting their own program to help the Obama administration advance the peace process.
Saperstein, in other words, was saying that J Street should have tactically not taken the position they believed in, simply because they lost potential allies in doing so. He said they needed to wage an effort to fight the Tea Party and those who wanted to end U.S. foreign aid and especially aid to Israel. Claiming that he was concerned with those who wanted to delegitimize the Jewish state, he said they needed a broad tent that would give credibility to their effort to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. They had to oppose those who sought to support the BDS campaign — boycott, divestment and sanctions — favored by many of the far left in America.
The pro-Israel forces, he concluded, needed their vision of a pro-peace position. This is not, he said, “a time for retreat, since our vision will prevail.” That vision, he ended, stood for “dignity, social justice, and peace.”
Saperstein was followed by J Street’s polished director, Jeremy Ben-Ami. Reiterating their principles, Ben-Ami argued that Israel had to choose between being isolated because of its policies of occupation and working relentlessly for Palestinian rights and a Palestinian homeland. That meant a willingness to give up Palestinian land that it now controlled and give it back to its rightful owners. Israel’s long-term security, he argued, necessitated a Palestinian state and achieving a two-state solution. It was clear that he believes that the reason this does not exist depends entirely on Israel, and not one word was uttered by him or Saperstein about what the PLA might be doing that harmed Israel and prevented a Palestinian state from being created. Israel’s own policies, he said, ruin its democratic character and cause its international isolation. Thus only vigorous criticism of the policies of the Netanyahu government was needed to save Israel from itself.
When the young man who introduced Peter Beinart spoke, he said Beinart inspired him, because while he loves Israel, he did not love its actions during the war in Gaza. Current policies of the Israeli government, Beinart said, were a moral failure and harmed Israel and put the country at risk. One had to wonder, what policies of Israel’s enemies, if any, does he think had the same effect? Does he really believe that a change to the “peace” policies he espouses would end Arab intransigence? Israel had to create a vibrant, democratic Israel — not the kind of Israel now led by the reactionary Netanyahu government. Then and only then could the true holy mission of the Jewish people be realized, he said.
The crowd seemed to love it. As for myself, I wondered how this arrogant, so-called pundit had the nerve to tell the Jewish Israelis what was in their interest, and to tell them that he knew more than those who elected the center-right government what was in their own best interest. Beinart had not one word to say about the actual threats facing Israel from the new Middle East being created as we speak, from Iran, and from the very real threats to Israel from radical Islam.
The latter is hardly a surprise, since J Street’s own statement of principles says it opposes “efforts to demean and fan fears of Islam or of Muslims.” In their eyes, evidently, any criticism or mention of radical Islam is verboten, since it reflects the kind of understanding liberals and the left can never comprehend.
You make an interesting admission when you write “One could not, the rabbi said, fulfill the destiny demanded by God and be holy, unless one fought for “justice, peace and equality.” In other words, Saperstein was essentially arguing that to be Jewish, one has to be on the left or be a liberal.” The implication of your comment is that if you are on the right or a conservative you need not be concerned about these three principles. I’m glad you said it.
No, Marc. We know that when left/liberals use the phrases “justice, peace and equality” and especially the content-free placeholder “social justice”, they have in mind certain programs and attitudes toward government and society, which they think are the only ways to achieve justice, peace, and equality. Because we do not agree with your prescriptions, you think we don’t want the same things.
The difference between liberals and conservatives, is that by and large we know you mean well, we just think the path you take to get there is misguided and is eventually used for evil (more and more government control). You think we are evil from the get-go, and that if we claim to want the same things you do, you assume we are lying or acting in bad faith. You do not give us even the slightest benefit of the doubt, that at least maybe our motives are as pure as yours.
I have watched the Left for 30 years, and many people who comment on these posts have also, and/or were on the Left themselves. We know how it is. We know what you guys think, and what you think of us. You have no idea how we think, or what we believe, or why we think your ideas suck. You don’t want to know, because you would rather have a boogie-man to demagogue than a real conversation.
In this article Mr Radosh was taking the short-cut of assuming his audience knows what was meant by Rabbi Saperstein in saying “justice, peace and equality”, and indeed we do. See, we’re about three conceptual loops ahead of you.
Gee Marc, were you born an idiot or do just play one on TV? The assertion by Saperstein was that some sort of left wing euro ideology not just satisfies but overrides Jewish values. Judaism predates European socialist ideology and the values within are independent of it. To assert that there is a new set of social ideals that one must adhere to is being a good progressive it has nothing to do with the values and ethics of Judaism. If you are Jewish you may want to look into Judaism more. There’s more to life than pretending that Europe somehow was and always will be the center of civilization. If you are not Jewish bleep off.
Please do not refer to that man as Rabbi. He does not deserve the title. He is a lawyer and anti-Israel lobbyist on Soros’ payroll with a never used Rabbinical degree.
He chose to participate in this desecration on Shabbat?
Sickening.
“He chose to participate in this desecration on Shabbat?”
No, it was well past sunset. You’re also wrong about it being a desecration.
Shabat is not over at sunset Rabbi. But yeah they waited a whole 20 minutes to begin the Israel hate fest after it was over. PJM is reporting today that kosher food is not even available at the conference.
Here are the people purporting to represent the American Jewish community on Israel according to their own director:
“The average age of the dozen or so staff members is about 30. Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.”
Firstly, Saperstein is as much a Rabbi as I am.Not.
In a very real sense he has recreated-as has his movement-Judaism into a facsimile of social justice progressive mandates,so far removed from Judaism as to render it meaningless.
The only way that the leading ‘lights’ in J/Jihad Street will be ‘proud’ of Israel is if it surrenders to Islam and secular dogma, even though both are polar opposites.However, the fact that both dogmas want Israel subsumed is reason enough for these diametrically opposed fanatical ideologies to lock arms.
In the same manner in which a rapist asks,how do you prefer the act to happen, so too do Israel’s ‘friends’ at J/Jihad Street.
As to the Arab Gazan doctor who lost his daughter during the defensive war in 2009, the onus for their death lies DIRECTLY on Hamas’s head.For IF they had not been shelling/killing our citizens for over 7 ! yrs, then Cast Lead would never have happened. One has to wonder how evil the Israelis are-stupid, but not evil-for not pummeling them into total submission as the first shell hit their citizens, as any normal leadership would!
I have been following Adina’s comments for these many years, and i truly admire her passion, which, I am assuming, strengthens her tenacity, and her integrity. I only wish more Jews were as informed as she is. None of what has
turned into the selling of the Soul would be transpiring.
Thank you, Adina.
Is this soo called rabbi from Reform Judaisms that in the 1940′s not only rejected Modern Zionism, objected the creation of State of Israel. If it were for his interpenetration, Judaism will not exist today neither any Jew. Those people are nothing more self loathing ignorant who didn’t learn anything from the last 2000 years of Jewish exile.
What did Dennis Ross have to say?
There are any number of responses to what is reported and I’ll leave it to others to do so. But there ought to be some response to the Reform rabbis’–not just this guy and not just here–and their facile equation of left wing ideology with true Judaism. This is especially demanded when they glibly refer to “social justice in the prophetic tradition,” which they often do.
I’m still waiting for someone to propose a workable definition of “social justice” but as it happens, the prophets to whom the rabbis refer had a set, discernible definition–rigid adherence to the laws of the Torah, all of them. For a Reform rabbi to claim the prophetic tradition of “social justice” is a bit risible.
I wait, have waited, will wait for J Street to do two things it shows no sign of doing: 1. Criticize Israel’s enemies and I don’t mean one of the usual “both sides must…” utterances, I mean a sound, unequivocal statement condemning actions or policies of Israel’s enemies, and by “enemies” I include the Palestinian Authority; and 2. Issue an unequivocal statement of support for Israel. I’d say “a proud and unequivocal statement” but I’m waiting for the unlikely, not the impossible.
J Streeters are concerned, I think, that their non-Jewish progressive friends not identify them with Israel too closely. No worries on that account.
I know its just a theory and is based on interpretations of ancient writings from many cultures. But the way things are “Armageddon” is starting to look like a distinct possibility.
So this is what Jewish liberation theology looks/sounds like. Got it but think I’ll pass.
The reason Jews still exist as a people, he argued, was that they were called to help shape a better and more hopeful world, by feeding the hungry, speaking out against injustice, and working on behalf of a fair wage for working people.
See, this is the kind of thing I am talking about. “feeding the hungry, speaking out against injustice” … yes, our tradition, our laws say many things about those mitzvot. and then ….. “working on behalf of a fair wage for working people.” Whoa. All of a sudden we veer from paraphrasing of genuine prophetic teachings to a Pete Seeger song. Sorry, show me any halacha, or well-accepted interpretation of Jewish texts, which boils down to something that specific. You had to cherry-pick some texts to get to that, and that’s what you people do.
But let’s say, fine, “working on behalf of a fair wage for working people.” Let’s talk about that. What’s “fair” and who decides? And who are “working people” and who aren’t, and who decides that, on what basis? And if you are willing to honestly address those questions, then we can have a real conversation about the real differences between liberals and conservatives.
A glib phrase like “working on behalf of a fair wage for working people” contains all sorts of assumptions about the answers to those questions, and they don’t get asked. And we conservatives see a phrase like that and we know what questions are not being asked, and those are crucial questions, to us. A conservative would not use that phrase, not because he doesn’t care about “working people,” but because that formulation is meaningless, if one is going to care about them in any useful way. Worse than meaningless, it is pernicious, because it assumes answers, to those unasked questions, which have always led to oppression and poverty.
BTW I have no problem calling Rabbi Saperstein a rabbi, nor the J-Street people real Jews, or even well-meaning Jews. I think they are ignorant and stupid, but God knows Jews and more so rabbis can be ignorant and stupid.
When the young man who introduced Peter Beinart spoke, he said Beinart inspired him, because while he loves Israel, he did not love its actions during the war in Gaza.
OK, I’ll cherry-pick some texts too. What part of “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first” does J-Street not understand? Not only is self-defense a Jewish value on an individual level, it is the first duty of a state to protect its citizens from outside attack. If a state isn’t doing that, it has betrayed its citizens at the root level. Gaza was firing thousands of rockets on Israel for years. The Israeli government acted immorally, not by stopping the attacks, but by letting them continue. Once Israel decided to stop the attacks – which required invading Gaza and killing the people who were perpetrating the attacks – at that point Israel began to act morally.
There is no pacifist tradition in Judaism; bring me any texts, from the prophets or anywhere else in our tradition, which make the case that it is immoral to defend yourself from an enemy who seeks to destroy you and who has repeatedly attacked you. The only way to do it is by claiming they aren’t seeking to destroy you, and/or that there is some way to get them to stop which does not involve military might. Thus the necessity of accusing Israel of paranoia and bullying. That is the liberal’s way of avoiding having to grapple with the complexities of power. Which our sages did not shrink from, nor did they have glib easy answers.
I am not comfortable with Israel’s not accepted all branches of Judaism….however, after reading and hearing about this so called “Rabbi” at J Street, I can fully understand. On another note, all those J Streeters would be wise to live in Israel before being allowed to demand things that they have no right to. It is one thing to spout ideology from the comforts of your New Jersey or Long Island bedroom, and another to be in a shelter in Sderot or Kiryat Shmona. Please tell me, where did all this self-hate come from?
The Talmud says if someone is trying to kill you, kill him first. The Torah distinguishes between intentional murder and accidental homicide and between the right to kill an intruder (in the dark) and refraining from doing so in the daylight. The Torah has many specific prescriptions re: labor and economics that are “liberal”-you are required to pay a laborer immediately, you must return a garment given in pledge for a debt by a poor person to that person so they can sleep in it overnight. The Prophets railed against wealthy people who purchased ivory to decorate their houses and the book of Isaiah said fasting was meaningless as long as one oppressed their workers.
None of this makes Jstreet a good organization. The elements of Torah calling for protection of workers are carried out far more in Israel (despite the need to improve) than in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority or in any Arab state. The right to self defense combined with efforts to protect civilians is part of the Israeli ethos; its neighbors including the Palestinian Arabs have the opposite-place civilians in the line of fire as in Gaza to generate civilian deaths or as in Iran’s case in the 80s send children ahead of the troops to blow up mines.
The problem is not citing Torah and Prophets as texts supporting social justice; the problem is equating imperfect societies such as Israel that attempt to instill those values with socieities that preach the opposite and are light years away from implementing those values.
Last, the fact that Torah calls for paying a worker on time doesn’t mean every liberal policy prescription is correct. Empirical evidence is necessary to determine what policies work. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned against policies that promoted the break up of African American families he was excoriated for being reactionary; he turned out to prophetic. The road to hell as they say is paved with good intentions ala Iran (see Barry Rubin’s book Paved with Good Intentions) and soon to be Egypt; it is also paved with evil intentions ala Palestinian incitement, a central fact that prevents peace making with Israel. See Joel Fishman’s downloadable article in the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.
These people at the J conference are a ‘shanda.’ I just wish these anti-Semitic Jews could understand how corrupt and just plain stupid they sound. It’s tiresome, and stupidity and ignorance are always tedious to explain and to spend time to disentangle their ‘mishagas.’ . Unfortunately, their active idiocy is dangerous, and in the Historical records their legacy will be one of shame in perpetuity, and it will follow their children and succeeding generations for all the days of their lives.
Who wouldn’t be an “enemy” of Israel if they happened to live next door? Either you believe the Palestinians are entitled to the same human dignity as Jews. Or, you believe they’re “filthy, shvatz goyim” who deserve to be brutally oppressed. The cult of victimhood that the pro-Israel crowd clings to is infantile, neurotic, and hidebound. J Street is nearly as bad – caring much more about group hugs than any sincere desire to liberate the Palestinians. The real “self-loathing Jews” are those too afraid to admit that Israel is doing anything wrong.
Yehudit, great comments. Thanks.
Alex:
“I’m still waiting for someone to propose a workable definition of “social justice” .”
Here are three.
1. A school of thought that increases the misery of the poor and powerless under the delusion (or in some cases the pretense) that one is helping them.
2. A movement among some modern Jews that distorts the Jewish teaching of Tikkun Olam (which has to do with fostering commerce and improving relations within society, or, in Kabbalistic thought, peformance of mitzvos) into an abrogation of private property and condoning every form of sexual immorality and even murder, while advocating against the right of self-defense.
3. The name of a magazine published before WWII by rabid anti-Semites.
We are unhappy people: we are affraid to defend our people even in words,searching for some excuse for our enemies.
There is some kind of distortion taking place here. I did NOT support a J Street statement supporting a UN Security Council Resolution condeming Israel. I have supported actions and positions taken by J Street in the past but my name SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN USED to suggest that I agree with anything more than what I supported in a previous situation. It was also wrong of a group critical of J Street to suggest that I supported such a thing ( I can not speak for the others). This is “yello journalism” at its highest and must be refuted.
Cantor Mark Perman
Roswell, GA
Sorry. The word is “yellow”.
Mark