April 1, 2011, 3:05 PM
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Over the past year or so, American Jewish opponents of Israel like writer and activist Peter Beinart have sought to intimidate and demoralize Israelis by telling us that American Jews either no longer support us or will stop supporting us if we don't give in to all the Arabs' demands.
But statistical evidence exposes these threats as utter lies. According to mountainous survey evidence, the American Jewish community writ large remains deeply supportive of Israel. Two surveys released last year by the American Jewish Committee and Brandeis University's Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies showed that three quarters of American Jews care deeply about Israel and that Israel is an important part of their Jewish identity. The Brandeis survey notably showed that young American Jews are no less likely to support Israel than they were in the past.
In fact, American Jews under 30 are more hawkish about the Palestinian conflict with Israel than Jews between the ages of 31-40 are.
According to the Brandeis survey, 51 percent of American Jews oppose a future division of Jerusalem, while a mere 29% would support it.
Younger Jews are more opposed to the capital's partition than older Jews are.
It is notable that the Brandeis survey found that political views do not impact American Jews' support for Israel. This is striking because among Americans at large, polls show Republicans are significantly stronger supporters of Israel than Democrats. But not among Jews.
"Liberals felt no less connected than conservatives and were no less likely to regard Israel as important to their Jewish identities. These observations hold true for both younger and older respondents," the Brandeis survey report explained.
Across the board, American Jews blame the Palestinians for the absence of peace and believe there is little chance that there will be peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the foreseeable future. Seventy-five percent agreed with the statement, "The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel"; 94% said the Palestinians should be required to accept the Jewish state's right to exist.
In light of these overwhelming levels of support, it is disconcerting to see that across the US, Jewish communities are failing to prevent anti- Zionist Jews from hijacking communal funds and facilities to finance anti-Israel activities.
CONSIDER A few recent examples.
In Orange County, California, intra-communal rancor is growing over the local Jewish Federation's financial and organizational support for University of California at Irvine's Olive Tree Initiative.
The Federation subsidizes Olive Tree Initiativeorganized tours of Israel for Jewish students. As Tammi Benjamin from UC Santa Cruz explained in a letter last December to local Federation CEO Shalom Elcott and local Hillel director Jordan Fruchtman, while OTI claims to be interested in fostering good relations between Jewish and Arab students, it actually just propagandizes against Israel. The speakers who addressed students participating in the two-week trip were overwhelmingly anti-Israel. Almost all the Palestinian speakers expressed hatred for Israel. Many of the Israeli speakers represented groups that call for economic warfare against Israel and defame Israel as a racist state. Half of the supposedly neutral representatives of international organizations who spoke to the group are notorious for their opposition to Israel.
Rather than end the practice of using Jewish communal funds to propagandize Jewish students to hate the Jewish state that most American Jews support and see as important to their Jewish identity, the Federation and Hillel have dug in their heels.
This week, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported that over the past two months, allegedly acting on instructions from the Federation, two local synagogues canceled an event sponsored by the local branch of the Zionist Organization of America at which Irvine Rabbi Dov Fischer was to present information about OTI's anti-Israel activities.
Speaking to the paper, Fischer said, "The amazing thing is how there has been a clamp-down by The Federation to prevent any speech or dissent in the community against The Federation's program. The idea that two different temples in the community, who have all kinds of speakers, canceled this program is profoundly shocking."
Meanwhile on the East Coast, both the Washington and New York Jewish communities are embroiled in a feud over Federation funding for anti-Israel Jewish groups. In Washington, a group of pro-Israel activists operating as the Committee Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art has begun a campaign to end Federation funding for anti-Israel activities.
In a letter to Federation President Susie Gelman and Federation board members from March 6, COPMA's chairman Robert Samet argued, "It is critical that the Federation establish guidelines for withholding funding from partner agencies that engage in political propaganda and activism denigrating Israel and undermining its legitimacy as a strong, secure and independent Jewish state."
COPMA's specific concern is Federation Funding for the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center's professional theater group Theater J.
As the letter explained, "Theater J, a partner agency of the Federation and a recipient of its funding and support, has turned an arts program at the DCJCC... into a platform for political activism that expresses hostility and antipathy towards the State of Israel and little regard for its security."
In 2009, Theater J staged the virulently anti- Semitic post-modern passion play Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill. The play accuses the entire Jewish population of Israel of mass murders that were never committed.
Unfortunately, as COPMA notes, this is par for the course. In the past, Theater J's artistic director Ari Roth organized buses to bring community members to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to watch a production of the virulently anti-Israel propaganda play My Name is Rachel Corrie.
This year, under Roth's leadership, Theater J presented Return to Haifa, a play that COPMA argues "distorts the history and origins of Israel and makes the historically accurate death of a Jewish child in the Holocaust... comparable to the fabricated and utterly fantastical story of an Arab child allegedly abandoned by his fleeing parents in Haifa in 1948, ostensibly as a result of their terror over advancing Israelis."
In response to COPMA's letter, Roth told the Forward that it "is not a prerogative of the donor" to intervene in artistic content, and claimed that attempts to limit the theater's activities amounted to censorship or blacklisting.
Carol Greenwald, COPMA's treasurer, rejects Roth's arguments. In her words, "The issue is not artistic freedom to create whatever the artist chooses; the issue is the appropriateness of a Jewish communal institution using Jewish communal funding to showcase defamation of the Jewish people."
The Forward quoted Andrew Apostolou, a local Jewish Community Relations Council member, as quite sensibly saying, "There are things a Jewish community shouldn't be doing, like serving a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur. Putting on an anti-Semitic play is one of these things."
COPMA is not alone in its concerns. In New York, a group of activists formed a new organization called JCC Watch to force the New York Jewish Federation to end financial support to the Manhattan JCC due to its partnership with organizations that support economic warfare against Israel through calls for economic boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Like COPMA, JCC Watch asks that the local Federation adopt guidelines to prevent Federation funds from being transferred to groups and programming that showcase calls for economic and political warfare against Israel.
So far, Washington's Federation has not responded to COPMA's letter. Interviewed by the Forward, the Washington Federation's CEO defended giving supporters of anti-Israel sanctions the stage as part of Federation-sponsored panels on the grounds of "welcoming multiple voices." And in an op-ed in New York Jewish Week last month, the New York Federation's CEO defended the JCC's partnership with groups that engage in economic and political warfare against Israel.
WHAT IS going on here? According to the AJC and Brandeis surveys, fewer than 10% of American Jews tend to accept the Arab line against Israel. Given the wall-to-wall support for Israel among American Jews, why do American Jewish organizational leaders refuse to do what their members want them to do? Why are they taking Jewish communal funds to finance activities and causes that are offensive to the Jewish community? Why are they pretending that the call to end communal funding for anti-Israel activities is a call for an abrogation of free speech?
To get a sense of how unprecedented this is, it is useful to consider the American Jewish community's response to Jews for Jesus. While Reform and Orthodox rabbis agree on almost nothing relating to Jewish laws and practices, since the emergence of Jews for Jesus in the 1970s, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis have been unified in their rejection of the Christian missionary group's protestations of being Jewish.
Everyone understands that while Jews have a perfect right to change their religion, they have no right to force the Jewish community to accept Christians as Jews. That is, they have no right to change the definition of Judaism to include people who worship Jesus.
So-called Messianic Jews falsely call themselves Jews to undermine the community from within. But no Federation feels compelled to invite a representative of so-called Messianic Jews to proselytize on stage as part of a panel discussion in order to "welcome multiple voices."
Hillel organizations have rightly refused space and funding to Messianic Jewish groups.
But today, American Jews find themselves helpless when a marginal group of anti-Zionist Jews demands - like the Messianic Jews of their day - communal funding and space for their anti-Israel activities.
The anti-Zionist groups make the same arguments as the Messianic Jews. They call themselves pro-Israel even as they engage in activities aimed at harming, defaming, weakening and delegitimizing the Jewish state. They claim that refusing them communal funds constitutes a violation of their free speech rights.
Yet while communal leaders did not hesitate to call the so-called Messianic Jews' bluff, they cannot find the way to expunge anti-Israel groups from their umbrella organizations.
The explanation for this behavior is apparently social. Federation leaders don't mind disappointing evangelical Christians. But most of their friends are leftist. Consequently the perceived social cost of taking action against groups like Theater J, J Street, B'Tselem, Breaking the Silence and Jewish Voices for Peace is too high for many American Jewish leaders to bear.
Happily, a handful of committed community members throughout the country are standing up and demanding that their communal leaders act in the interests of the communities they serve. It can only be hoped that the overwhelming majority of American Jews who clearly wish to support Israel will join these activists' call and demand that all Jewish Federations stop allowing anti-Israel groups to feed from the communal trough. If they do, they will find that much to their surprise, the social costs of actions will be far smaller than they expected.
After all, Israel's supporters are the majority.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
UPDATE: Yesterday the Forward reported that in September 2009 UC Irvine students met with Hamas leader Aziz Duwaik during an Olive Tree Initiative organized visit to Israel. The Orange County Federation knew about this in October 2009 and yet not only have they continued to support the OTI, they actively blocked public discussion of the OTI as recently as this month.
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Just for the record Caroline, I'm a Christian Zionist who believes that Jerusalem should not be divided
Zechariah is clear. All who touch Jersusalem will be bruised. I happen to believe that the fall of the British Empire is a result of our hostilty to the emergence of Israel. We have almost become a non-entity in World affairs. We tried to curse Israel, and God cursed us
I love the Jewish people, pray for Israel, and work as an ambassadeur for Israel and against those who hate you
I believe that a time will come when Israel possesses the whole land from the "river to the sea"
Yes I do believe in Jesus as your Messiah, but am sure that you don't have to abandon your Jewishness to believe in Him
As a Bible student of some 30 years, I'm convinced things will get harder for Israel. Israel is largely Godless, and tries the patience of the Almighty. But a time is coming, when all the Nations are gathered againt her, that she will turn to Him and He will deliver you
God has two peoples - Israel first, then the Church. We are grafted into the vine, and cannot exist without you. We would have no Bible, no prophets, no saviour
The Church has a debt to Israel, and I for one am happy to acknowledge it
Caroline:
Why are you picking on Jews for Jesus and lumping them with anti-Israelis?
I know many in the group and none of them are anti-Israeli and neither is their organization.
Why do this thing?
'Jewish opponents of Israel ... have sought to intimidate and demoralize Israelis by telling us that American Jews either no longer support us or will stop supporting us if we don’t give in to all the Arabs’ demands'
This sounds like the Israeli governments policy against the last remaining Zionists builders of Israel in Judea and Samaria.
Follow this virulent anti-Israel strain back to the head.
The Jewish leadership of Israel lead by example ,their deeds ,not their words.
It is said that imitation is the sincerest from of flattery.
The Jewish opponents of Israel in America are only following the capitulation and surrender agenda of the Israeli government.
As they watch the Israeli government attack Jewish settlers is it any wonder that defeat and surrender fill the great Jewish leadership void ?
Thank God they are not as dangerous as the quisling leadership and cannot surrender Israel's strategic Jerusalem real estate and land as Netanyahu did last week to Putin on his Moscow visit.
Why is it that Israel always,always gives in for nothing in return ?
It's no surprise that Netanyahu's request to Obummer for Jonathan Pollards release was totally ignored.
I wonder what gift of appeasement and surrender Shimon Peres is delivering to Obama when he visists this week ?
Caroline, let's hope that such an allegedly overwhelming support for Israel among the American Jews will translate into a staunch support for Sarah Palin - the most pro-Israel public figure in US, when she enters the election for American Presidency in 2012.
Those few million votes that the Am.Jews could give her would not only be decisive for America's but above all for Israel's future.
I find it rather hard to believe considering the statemants made by many of the most prominent Jews like Dershowitz, Koch and others.
Equally here in Australia, the Aussie Jews (majority of them at least) are infatuated with the formally anti-Israel Labor Party to such a degree that they are incapable of changing their political allegiance no matter what.
Also majority of them seem not to give a damm at all.
I know many of them personally so I also know what I'm writing about.
Best Wishes!
I've stopped reading the Jewish Journal as their leadership have apparently decided to stick their heads in the sand like the German Jews under Hitler.
I note AIPAC has not been critical of Obama ever since installing an Obama operative as President.
51% oppose a future division of Jerusalem? I don't find that statistic the least bit reassuring.
Thank you Caroline, for this very necessary examination of the pro-terrorist hijacking of American Jewish advocacy. The people who are gaining influence in our community organizations often have very little accountability to the actual community itself.
Despite not representing the Jewish community, they are not elected to their positions of influence by the community -- they are appointed -- in an undemocratic fashion.
We need more investigative journalism of this sort. We need to publicly protest the misuse of donors' funds, and publicly shame the now-corrupt institutions.
If these corrupt organizations cannot be reformed, then they should be destroyed, and constantly referred to as what they have become -- anti-Jewish organizations. Furthermore, anyone emanating from any tainted [former] organization should bear extreme scrutiny before they are ever hired again, at any other Jewish organization. Working for an anti-Jewish organization, no matter what its name is, should be a career-ending move, for all Jewish community workers.
Caroline:
It is worth noting that one Jewish Community Federation has taken action against this exact phenomenon-- and it is the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, located in America's very own "hub of delegimitzation". After the egregious program put on by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival in 2009 when they not only screened the agitprop film "Rachel" about ISM volunteer Rachel Corrie who gave her life to protect terrorist smuggling tunnels, they invited Cindy Corrie to speak after the film. [If anyone isn't familiar with the incident, please see http://www.bluetruth.net/2009/07/sf-jewish-film-festival-audience-jeers.html].
The resulting community outcry led to the adoption by the Federation of guidelines which, if adopted in other communities, would have prevented some of the incidents that you describe.
The guidelines [http://sfjcf.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/policy/] read, in part:
"The JCF does not fund organizations that through their mission, activities or partnerships:
endorse or promote anti-Semitism, other forms of bigotry, violence or other extremist views;
actively seek to proselytize Jews away from Judaism; or
advocate for, or endorse, undermining the legitimacy of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state, including through participation in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in whole or in part."
It's not a complete firewall, but it's an awfully good start.
This was a very good article as always. However, I don't agree with your conclusion that Messianic Jews are anti-Israel. I have read of some of the Jewish groups you named doing things against Israel, but I have never read about any Messianic Jewish organization or temple doing anything against Israel. Can you relate any specifics. I know two Messianic Jews on the internet and they are Jewish, one was a Rabbi. The other is very religious and adheres the word of G-d without variance. I think I would fall out of my chair if she began to say or do anything against Israel. The Rabbi has a blog site and everything he writes is pro-Israel. On his site if your comment even suggested anything anti-Israel I am sure he would remove you. There are not many Messianic Jews, but I think most of them are Jews who simply began to accept Jesus as the Messiah. They use passages in the old testament (the Torah) to support their view. If there are former Christians among them, I am fairly sure it is a minority. One thing for sure, if any Messianic Jewish organization or Temple is doing anything harmful toward Israel, they are not following the word of G-d as they claim. I don't think they are anti-Israel though. One last thing I believe is that it doesn't matter if you believe that the Messiah comes once or twice. It doesn't matter if you think Jesus was the Messiah or not. When he comes again, it doesn't matter if you think its the first time or second. What matters is that when he comes in the future, you believe he is the Messiah. This is the one none of us who believe in G-d can afford to miss.
Once again, the reader is left with the impression that there are no Pro-Israel Orgs which have the courage to advocate for Israel..
Take the following event in NYC as a prime example...
(AFSI is the host Org)..
MA'ARAT HA'MACHPELA - The right to a JEWISH presence in HEBRON forever, will be the subject of an urgent meeting on TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2011, 7:30 P.M., at the WESTSIDE INSTITUTIONAL SYNAGOGUE, 120 West 76th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Aves., NYC
RABBI SIMCHA HOCHBAUM, Hebron Director of Tourism, will be the keynote speaker, and ARI LIEBERMAN, the new outreach Director for the Hebron fund, will be introduced. An inspiring film about HEBRON will be shown and there will be ample time for questions and answers.
The event is co-sponsored by the HEBRON FUND and AMERICANS FOR A SAFE ISRAEL/AFSI. Please make every effort to attend. It is vital that we demonstrate to our HEBRON friends that we value the daily commitment they make to preserve Israel's second holiest place. It is because there are Jews living in HEBRON today that American Jews have the privilege of visiting there whenever they choose. We must not take this for granted.
Caroline, another excellent article. My first reaction was to comment immediately, but it was too close to Shabbat. This gave me a chance to consider the issues you've presented and perhaps offer a cogent response.
A good number of American Jewish leaders are like myself baby boomers. They are generally Democrats and Liberal by nature and tend to vote for the party not the candidate which explains the overwhelming Jewish vote for Obama. There is no question that we love and support Israel, but most of us have been taught from early on not to make waves and draw attention to our Jewishness. We Boomers grew up in a time when Jews weren't allowed to work in many fields and Orthodox Jews were discriminated against even by secular Jews. This has made many of our leaders reticent to speak out as old habits die hard. I was brought up to express my views and never hide my Jewishness, but sadly I am in the minority. As I get older I have become more outspoken, never pass up a chance to fight for the right of Israel to exist unconditionally, and pray that events presently unfolding in the Middle East will bring us back to our senses before it is too late. Am Yisrael Chai!
Thank You Ms. Glick for focusing on my community in Southern California.
By the way, Rabbi Michael Lerner and others like Rita Hauser and former LA Police Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum[whom I had a word with, I doubt he ever forgot, very ill man had advanced Parkinson's, which has a hallmark symptom aside from tremor at rest: poor judgement] were instrumental in causing this misinformation to be spread in the community for at least 30 years, so sadly, this is not a new phenomenon.
I remember quite well about 15 years ago, I was reading the generally worthless LA Jewish Journal, an op-ed by one Yehuda Lev. This well known gadfly, promoter of "Peace Now" infuriated me so much! Below this disgusting article I read that Lev was going to address a well moneyed UCLA Westwood "temple" that night. I got in my car and arrived in time to witness a red tied Lev stretching the truth and trying to influence the congregation to be appeasement minded towards a PLO state. I got up and I confronted Lev on his lie with respect to a comment by The Chabad Rebbe and his support for Israel. Lev made a tactical retreat from his statement, but tried to color me as some kind of a nut. I finished off by retorting, "you and your red tie".The entire congregation roared with laughter and Lev was obviously humilated. He took off his tie right on stage and flung it over his shoulder,rejected, he squirmed away in disgrace. He left LA for Providence, Rhode Island soon thereafter, where I presume he has since croaked.
I did the same to an LA Federation big shot who was like Lev. When he got up to introduce guest Prime Minister Shamir, I booed him. He had already warned[published in Jewish Journal] that if anyone booed him again, he would quit his post, i.e. cut off his donation. So this time, as usual, the audience consisting of a large contingent from The Israeli Consulate in LA were polite, no boos this time, so, I loudly booed anyway. One Israeli Consulate Staffer turned to me,with a huge grin. They could'nt do it so I guess I did it for them all.
I do not do that anymore, but I encourage others to publicly humiliate these stuffed shirt Paper Tiger Mosquitos.
In re :This year, under Roth's leadership, Theater J presented Return to Haifa, a play that COPMA argues "distorts the history and origins of Israel and makes the historically accurate death of a Jewish child in the Holocaust... comparable to the fabricated and utterly fantastical story of an Arab child allegedly abandoned by his fleeing parents in Haifa in 1948, ostensibly as a result of their terror over advancing Israelis."
That is an entirely inaccacurate description of
Return to Haifa. The Jewish mother, whose child was murdered by the Nazis, is extremely sympathetic to the Palestinian mother who left her child, and that sympathy is not reciprocated by the Arabs. There is absolutely nothing in the play that attempts to portray their losses as equal.
Mrs. Glick,
I absolutely love your articles and your troupe over at Latma. Great work!
I have never commented before, but felt I must address a comment you make in this article. You said, "So-called Messianic Jews falsely call themselves Jews to undermine the community from within."
According to the 2004 Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 43% of Jews in Israel are secular. How is it that these people are still called Jews irrespective of their religion, but Jews who believe in Yeshua Ha'Mashiach have somehow relinquished their Jewishness? Even among religious Jews, there are differences of opinion as to who the Messiah is (or was). By asserting that only those Jews who belive Jesus to be the Messiah are NOT Jews, you attempt to unilaterally establish yourself as the final arbiter of what constitutes legitimate Jewry.
Yours is a false assertion, based upon your narrow idealogy rather than upon fact. It is a dark stain upon your otherwise objective journalism.
Additionally, you claim that Messianic Jews "undermine the [Jewish] community from within." If by "undermine" you primarily mean that Messianic Jews attempt to show other Jews that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah (because he was of the tribe of Judah-Genesis 49:10; he was born of the house of Jesse-Isaiah 11:1; but was not of the line of Jeconiah-Jeremiah 22:30; and he fulfilled the role of Suffering Servant-Isaiah 53 and of Mashiach ben Yoseph; and will come again as the conquering king and Mashiach ben David), then yes, I concede the point. But in all other respects, Messianic Jews are as pro-Israel and pro-Jew as they can be. Again, you are allowing your idealogy to undermine your journalistic integrity.
For those of your audience wishing to escape the confines of your willful blindness to the message of the Messianic Jews, I commend Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum's work "Messianic Christology" for an exhaustive examination of the messianic scriptures and how the historic man Jesus meets each messianic criteria.
When the U.N. General Assembly convenes in New York in September, the Durban III circus will also be in town. Add to this Obama's recent use of the so-called "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine to justify American intervention in Libya, and it seems clear to me that the pieces of a major assault against Israel are being laid for the fall convention. Unfortunately, leaders of American Jewish organizations are so weak and compromised, that they have no plans to counter this U.N.-sponsored stoning of Israel. Apparently, the world's largest Jewish community outside Israel will sit, shtum, along with our ineffectual leaders, as Israel is pilloried like never before. Unless we start planning on our own, now.
Yes, Caroline, we still have problems with many liberal Jews supporting the likes of a Barack Obama as well sometimes not whole heartedly standing behind Israel. Perhaps after experiencing Obamas present course of action against Israel, more liberal Jews will assist in voting our shameless president out of office with the parallel hope that the conservatives of American politics will see that we do not select another woos like John McCain to run against Obama, or we will be stuck with another 4 years of the miscreant - sad to say about our President, but true.
Like several other commenters, I have never found a Jews for Jesus adherent who either spoke against or took an anti-Israeli stance. They are as pro-Israel as most if not all truely born again Christians. I, for one, who have visited Israel 3 times, if asked to fight for her, would do exactly that without hesitation. There are many more like me here, and if it meant facing down Obama if he in any way increases his anti-Israel stance, so be it.
Keep your articles coming. Appreciate your stalwart stance and your unrelenting source of strength to those who champion the cause and fight of Israel.