When Wendy Shalit in a notable Sunday New York Times Book Review essay sharply criticized several Jewish novelists for their stereotypical writing about Orthodox Jews, the fictionalists were able to respond that, after all, they were writing fiction.
No such fig-leaf is available to journalists and those with scholarly credentials whose writing is permeated by distortions born out of hostility toward religious Jews.
There obviously are Orthodox who do wrong. There are scoundrels and immoral people. That's life, the unavoidable consequence of human failings that multiply as social interactions expand.
This truth provides no justification for the lies, stereotypes and other tools of the trade of bigots who also have a pen.
When the Orthodox challenge those who depict their community as steeped in wrongdoing, they are further accused of a cover-up, notwithstanding the further truth that there isn't another sector in Jewish life that comes close to the Orthodox in reaching out and attempting to deal with those whose behavior is dysfunctional. Sadly, too many Jews, most of whom are bedecked with liberal and humanitarian credentials, eagerly lap up everything that is hostile to religious Jews.
I HAVE just read Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels by Hella Winston. Winston is a strong writer, a talent that is not paired with scholarly skills. As she tells the stories - actually part of the stories - of some who abandoned hassidic life, she shows little concern as to whether what she is being told about entire communities is the truth.
If another writer would write in a similar vein about Italians or Blacks or other ethnics, there would be the serious charge of bigotry.
Alas, Orthodox Jews and especially hassidim are fair game.
There are more than a handful of hassidim who have left the fold. This phenomenon was evident in European societies that were far more closed than America's is. Winston should have sufficient sociological curiosity to place the hassidic experience in the context of the experiences of other ethnic groups, for example what we know about defections among the Amish or Mormons or, for that matter, other Jews.
If we assume that Winston's reporting is the full story of what has transpired in the lives of those who people her book - an assumption that I will not make - truthfulness would not relieve her of the transgression of stereotyping.
A stereotype essentially is an accurate statement about wrongful behavior committed by one or more members of a group that is presented as characteristic of the entire group. Winston accepts what her storytellers tell her without wondering whether, because those who defect are likely to have axes to grind, their tales are often not the whole truth. We certainly should not accept as the final word what an angry person says about his father's words or behavior.
By accepting as gospel truth what she has been told, Winston provides abundant fodder to those who depict hassidim as sexual abusers and predators and as crooks. I am confident that Unchosen will be cited by writers who are out to show the perversity and perfidy of hassidim.
As an example - and I think that it is vile - there is this about Moti, one of the defectors, who in Winston's telling was "easy prey for some of the older men in the community. On many occasions, these men would grope and fondle him in the men's mikvah."
This is followed by additional claims of widespread sexual abuse. I do not know what happened to Moti and I do know that there is a measure of sexual wrongdoing among hassidim, although I guess that it is significantly below what occurs elsewhere. It should matter to those who care about the truth that the men's mikve experience is a quick dip in public view, a circumstance that enormously reduces the likelihood of groping and fondling.
Winston's lead character is Yossi, a failure in marriage and at various jobs who has a raging libido and foul mouth and, perhaps unbeknownst to the writer who is giving him a day in the sun, is presented as dysfunctional and repugnant. Yet, his words about his father and experiences are accepted without question. Yossi is Winston's muse for the following in which inanity and falsity vie for first place:
"Young Hasidim are formally taught almost nothing about sex until the weeks immediately before their wedding when young men and women attend classes taught by specially designated members of the community. Those who have had the advantage of an especially savvy older or married sibling, had access to pornography, or, tragically, been the victims of sexual abuse may have some prior knowledge of the subject. But many are shaken by what they learn, and some - especially the most sheltered boys - actually faint on the spot after hearing what they will have to do on their wedding nights."
I will not say that no hassid has ever fainted under these circumstances, no more than I would say that nothing untoward has happened to other people under whatever wedding experiences they had endured.
For Winston to present this as typical of group behavior is stereotypical writing at its worst.
There are problems in the hassidic communities and they ought not be shoved under any carpet. The alternative to shoving under the carpet is not to exaggerate and distort.
The alternative is to deal truthfully and with empathy with the problems that arise.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Friday, May 05, 2006
A Grand Desecration
Even before Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe, was buried and even before his funeral began, representatives of his battling sons were in court, showing once more no concern for the important halachic principle that reliance on secular courts to resolve disputes between religious Jews is a Chilul Hashem or desecration of G-D's name. Few halachic transgressions are more serious, yet some people who are demanding about other religious obligations are lax when it comes to this cardinal principle of our faith. It may be impolite to ask the Satmars what license they have to desecrate G-D's name, but in view of the seriousness of their violation, the greater wrong is not to ask.
Sadly, intra-chassidic conflict is escalating, increasingly ending up on legal dockets. Rabbis Aharon and Zalman Lieb, the Satmar disputants, are by now fixtures on legal briefs and it is certain that they will continue to utilize the services of lawyers and attract media attention. Brooklyn State Supreme Court has for more than a decade been the primary venue for legal fisticuffs among battling Lubavitchers and that, too, isn't likely to end any time soon. Succession issues brought the Bobovers to court, although thankfully that path seems to have been abandoned.
Chassidic life is evolving. Social and religious factors, including family size, suggest that what we are witness to in Satmar will be duplicated in other groups. As in all social settings, conflict within Chassidic groups should not be surprising. What should be troubling, particularly for the Orthodox, is the willingness to slug it out in court and in public. There is no inclination for restraint, nor is there a willingness to rely on Beth Dins or religious courts for conflict resolution.
The Chilul Hashem committed by Satmar leaders is an issue that we should not duck and pretend as if it is an internal Satmar matter. The key characteristic of activity that is described as a Chilul Hashem is its public nature and therefore for religious Jews the reaction cannot be see no evil, hear no evil, know no evil. Religious leaders and groups must not sit idly by as the Shulchan Aruch or our Code of Religious Law is purposely violated. They should declare that Satmar issues and similar conflicts must be decided by religious courts, perhaps Israeli Beth Dins, and not in courts in Orange and Kings counties.
I expect to be criticized for publicly advocating this course, critics saying that it's wrong to air such views in public. The Satmar conflict is being aired in public because the Satmars have put it there. The respected rabbinical body of Agudath Israel should call for restraint and reliance on religious courts, a message that should be echoed by other Orthodox groups and individual rabbis. Newspapers serving the charedi or fervently observant Orthodox - Hamodia and Yated Ne'eman - should include in their eulogistic coverage of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum words to the effect that what is obligatory for other Orthodox Jews is obligatory for Chassidic groups.
As if to illustrate the familiar point that one sin begets another, the public relations firm hired by Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum's supporters, sent out a press release during shiva inviting the media to come to Williamsburg where its client would be leading services on Shabbos. The press was asked to "be respectful of the religious observances and practices" of the chassidim and to limit their photography to stills and prints.
Likely, Satmar will split into competing but not distinct parts, each with its leadership and communal infrastructure. At the rank and file level, there will be some dual loyalty and much family and other interaction between adherents of each of the sons. This pattern has been evident for a while as there has been a degree of autonomy among the various Satmar subgroups during the nearly thirty years that Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum headed the movement.
It was his important achievement that the sense of a Satmar community was maintained during his long tenure. He was no more than a pale shadow of his uncle and predecessor, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, who essentially founded the movement and imbued it with vitality and its distinctive characteristics. Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was an epic figure, a man of surpassing intellect, vision and charisma who was respected, even admired, by many who could not accept his ideology or theology. He ingrained in the Satmar ethos an instinct for charitable giving that may be unparalleled in contemporary Jewish life.
Satmar has internal problems apart from the question of succession, including sharp disagreements over ideology. It also has its share of problems arising from deviance from group or social norms. There are those who drop out or act up or engage in wrongful activity. There are mental health problems, many children with special needs and the consequences of an extraordinarily high fertility rate. In short, Satmar operates in the real world.
For all of the difficulties faced by the group - and I believe that the degree of deviance is relatively low - there is a remarkably high degree of retention of identity and commitment. In Satmar shuls there is, as Rabbi Hertz Frankel has noted, the common sight that is rare for nearly all other American Jews of four generations being together. Another measure of the community's vitality is the statistic that 20,000 or ten percent of all students enrolled in elementary and high school yeshivas and day schools in the United States attend Satmar schools.
These are impressive achievements and there are others. Whatever internal discord lies ahead, it is to be hoped that it will be conducted in a framework of peaceful coexistence and that Satmar rabbis and lay leaders will come to understand that there is no excuse for perpetrating a Chilul Hashem.
Sadly, intra-chassidic conflict is escalating, increasingly ending up on legal dockets. Rabbis Aharon and Zalman Lieb, the Satmar disputants, are by now fixtures on legal briefs and it is certain that they will continue to utilize the services of lawyers and attract media attention. Brooklyn State Supreme Court has for more than a decade been the primary venue for legal fisticuffs among battling Lubavitchers and that, too, isn't likely to end any time soon. Succession issues brought the Bobovers to court, although thankfully that path seems to have been abandoned.
Chassidic life is evolving. Social and religious factors, including family size, suggest that what we are witness to in Satmar will be duplicated in other groups. As in all social settings, conflict within Chassidic groups should not be surprising. What should be troubling, particularly for the Orthodox, is the willingness to slug it out in court and in public. There is no inclination for restraint, nor is there a willingness to rely on Beth Dins or religious courts for conflict resolution.
The Chilul Hashem committed by Satmar leaders is an issue that we should not duck and pretend as if it is an internal Satmar matter. The key characteristic of activity that is described as a Chilul Hashem is its public nature and therefore for religious Jews the reaction cannot be see no evil, hear no evil, know no evil. Religious leaders and groups must not sit idly by as the Shulchan Aruch or our Code of Religious Law is purposely violated. They should declare that Satmar issues and similar conflicts must be decided by religious courts, perhaps Israeli Beth Dins, and not in courts in Orange and Kings counties.
I expect to be criticized for publicly advocating this course, critics saying that it's wrong to air such views in public. The Satmar conflict is being aired in public because the Satmars have put it there. The respected rabbinical body of Agudath Israel should call for restraint and reliance on religious courts, a message that should be echoed by other Orthodox groups and individual rabbis. Newspapers serving the charedi or fervently observant Orthodox - Hamodia and Yated Ne'eman - should include in their eulogistic coverage of Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum words to the effect that what is obligatory for other Orthodox Jews is obligatory for Chassidic groups.
As if to illustrate the familiar point that one sin begets another, the public relations firm hired by Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum's supporters, sent out a press release during shiva inviting the media to come to Williamsburg where its client would be leading services on Shabbos. The press was asked to "be respectful of the religious observances and practices" of the chassidim and to limit their photography to stills and prints.
Likely, Satmar will split into competing but not distinct parts, each with its leadership and communal infrastructure. At the rank and file level, there will be some dual loyalty and much family and other interaction between adherents of each of the sons. This pattern has been evident for a while as there has been a degree of autonomy among the various Satmar subgroups during the nearly thirty years that Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum headed the movement.
It was his important achievement that the sense of a Satmar community was maintained during his long tenure. He was no more than a pale shadow of his uncle and predecessor, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, who essentially founded the movement and imbued it with vitality and its distinctive characteristics. Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum was an epic figure, a man of surpassing intellect, vision and charisma who was respected, even admired, by many who could not accept his ideology or theology. He ingrained in the Satmar ethos an instinct for charitable giving that may be unparalleled in contemporary Jewish life.
Satmar has internal problems apart from the question of succession, including sharp disagreements over ideology. It also has its share of problems arising from deviance from group or social norms. There are those who drop out or act up or engage in wrongful activity. There are mental health problems, many children with special needs and the consequences of an extraordinarily high fertility rate. In short, Satmar operates in the real world.
For all of the difficulties faced by the group - and I believe that the degree of deviance is relatively low - there is a remarkably high degree of retention of identity and commitment. In Satmar shuls there is, as Rabbi Hertz Frankel has noted, the common sight that is rare for nearly all other American Jews of four generations being together. Another measure of the community's vitality is the statistic that 20,000 or ten percent of all students enrolled in elementary and high school yeshivas and day schools in the United States attend Satmar schools.
These are impressive achievements and there are others. Whatever internal discord lies ahead, it is to be hoped that it will be conducted in a framework of peaceful coexistence and that Satmar rabbis and lay leaders will come to understand that there is no excuse for perpetrating a Chilul Hashem.
The Abuse of Research in the Jewish Community
American Jewry is awash in statistical research. Scarcely a week goes by without a new contribution to the numbers game. Since statistics are not supposed to lie and numbers always have the appearance of objectivity, there is an understandable tendency to accept the data as holy writ. Few of us bother to examine the research behind the data or, in fact, whether the research is available for examination.
A case in point is a purported survey of Jewish women's sexuality that was reported on in the Forward on May 7, 2004. We were told, among other things, "that 15.7 percent of Jewish women claimed to have experienced sexual abuse before the age of 13 and 9.9 percent after 13." These statistics are cited by Hella Winston in a recently published book called "Unchosen." What concerns me here is something else: the dubious presentation of statistics.
After I read Winston's book and got a hold of the Forward story, I assumed that certainly the study from which the data come must be readily available, either in a scholarly journal or some other publication and if not in either of these, then on the Internet. It turns out that there is no such publication, no paper. Two years after the Forward article, one of the principal researchers told me yesterday that the document is nearing completion and will probably be published in about two years. Is this acceptable? Is this scholarship? By the time the publication is available, the data shall have been cited perhaps dozens of times by other writers and researchers, without any of them being able to check whether the data are being properly used by those who cite the original statistics.
It turns out that while Winston uses the data to refer to sexual abuse among Chassidim, the research actually covers other subgroups of Orthodoxy, including, I was told, a significant number of baalei teshuva who doubtlessly were not Orthodox when they were thirteen.
What we have here is an abuse of scholarship, one more example of how statistics are being presented in ways to make Orthodox Jews look as if they engage inordinately in wrongful behavior.
A case in point is a purported survey of Jewish women's sexuality that was reported on in the Forward on May 7, 2004. We were told, among other things, "that 15.7 percent of Jewish women claimed to have experienced sexual abuse before the age of 13 and 9.9 percent after 13." These statistics are cited by Hella Winston in a recently published book called "Unchosen." What concerns me here is something else: the dubious presentation of statistics.
After I read Winston's book and got a hold of the Forward story, I assumed that certainly the study from which the data come must be readily available, either in a scholarly journal or some other publication and if not in either of these, then on the Internet. It turns out that there is no such publication, no paper. Two years after the Forward article, one of the principal researchers told me yesterday that the document is nearing completion and will probably be published in about two years. Is this acceptable? Is this scholarship? By the time the publication is available, the data shall have been cited perhaps dozens of times by other writers and researchers, without any of them being able to check whether the data are being properly used by those who cite the original statistics.
It turns out that while Winston uses the data to refer to sexual abuse among Chassidim, the research actually covers other subgroups of Orthodoxy, including, I was told, a significant number of baalei teshuva who doubtlessly were not Orthodox when they were thirteen.
What we have here is an abuse of scholarship, one more example of how statistics are being presented in ways to make Orthodox Jews look as if they engage inordinately in wrongful behavior.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
RJJ Newsletter - Lack Of Intra-Orthodox Cooperation
New York has enacted legislation providing tax relief to families with school-age children. It was passed over the veto of Governor Pataki who advocated a different approach that would have provided greater and more direct assistance to a smaller number of yeshiva and day school parents. Either approach would result in a modest, yet significant, benefit and for this we should be grateful.
I would have preferred legislation that puts money directly into school coffers, patterned after the New York Textbook and Mandated Services legislation of more than a generation ago. While direct aid to schools under religious sponsorship raises constitutional issues that the new legislation likely avoids, I believe that the high-cost security and energy needs of parochial schools would have provided a sufficient constitutional leg to stand on.
One of the interesting features of recent developments is that the various segments of the Orthodox community essentially went on their separate ways. The new legislation offered a critical opportunity for Orthodox leaders and groups to sit down and try to work out a common strategy. Dream on. Orthodox leaders rarely meet these days across the communal divide, nor are they inclined to pick up the phone to discuss with persons outside of their small zone issues of critical importance. It seems at times that it is easier to get them to break bread with secular Jews than with fellow Orthodox of a somewhat different religious stripe.
Variety and conflict are inherent in religious experiences because people of faith inevitably disagree over what their faith requires. It should not be surprising or disturbing that we Orthodox Jews are awash in disagreement over halachic and hashkafic issues. Our history and responsa demonstrate that wherever Jewish life flourished, there was conflict regarding practices and, at times, even beliefs. There was, of course, consensus over fundamentals.
In the American experience, intra-Orthodox conflict was muted for an extended period, mainly because the Orthodox were weak and meek. With the emergence in the post-Holocaust years of a more assertive Orthodoxy, there was heightened conflict over Israel, relationships with the non-Orthodox, secular education and other matters. There was also a pattern of cooperation regarding a host of communal activities. In a sense, unity and disunity coexisted.
Decades ago, there was intense, even nasty, battling over membership in religious bodies together with non-Orthodox clergy and congregations, as well as the draft of young women into the Israeli army or the requirement that they do national service. These conflicts were serious business and they left scars. Yet, they did not impede cooperation between the different segments of Orthodoxy, as for example in the building of the day school movement in the U.S. or support for Chinuch Atzmai, the network of independent religious schools in Israel. Rav Aharon Kotler, the transcendent Torah leader, was at the center of this activity and though he was fiercely committed to intense Torah study and rigorous standards, he strenuously reached out to leaders across the spectrum of Orthodoxy.
When the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs or COLPA came into being forty years ago and I become its first president, conflict between the modern Orthodox and yeshiva world was not a barrier to cooperation on government aid to parochial schools or efforts to protect Sabbath observers against workplace discrimination. COLPA's briefs were signed by all Orthodox groups.
Nowadays, although differences remain over various practices and beliefs, there is a higher degree of unity at both the personal and communal levels. The Synagogue Council is no more, while conflict over Israel has abated. The Daf Hayomi experience and ArtScroll have forged a bond that unites Orthodox Jews in Torah study. It is true that yeshivas and day schools often operate like incompatible institutions and there are yawning differences regarding dress and other behaviors, specifically including how best to react to the outside world. But the separate communal segments are not at war.
Unfortunately, they also do not cooperate and interact as they once did. Each segment of Orthodoxy is on its own, making Shabbos for itself and frequently acting as if there are no other parts to be reckoned with. Leaders do not meet or talk and there scarcely are any forums for group interaction. This for a people who comprise perhaps 10-12% of American Jewry. The absence of intra-communal contacts certainly arises more from lifestyle changes than from ideology. Families are larger, we all have many more events to go to, most of us want to engage in Torah study and we can scarcely keep up with the barrage of messages coming our way through email, cell phones and whatever else technology has wrought. We are struggling to catch our breath and scarcely have time or energy for the sort of communal activity that once was esteemed.
Still, organizational ego serves as a barrier. In a way, each segment of Orthodoxy which represents no more than 2-3% of all of American Jews is saying that its four cubits are what count. This also means that increasingly we are saying that there is no one Orthodox community.
This diminishes our capacity to achieve mutual goals. It is telling - or should be - that for all of the noise coming from certain Orthodox groups that trumpet their achievements, over the last generation American Orthodoxy has achieved very little in the legislative and legal arenas. By dividing ourselves into little boxes, we have put on display our smallness. Interestingly, the New York legislative achievement is substantially the result of the efforts of people in the Syrian Jewish community.
Our current instinct to go it alone also results in the distortion of the past in order to make it compatible with how we now act and feel. An English language book has just been published on the life and teachings of the great Roshe Yeshiva of Lakewood. I trust that it has much merit, but it also puts on display the problem we face. There is a photograph from the first Chinuch Atzmai dinner which was held more than a half century ago. Amazingly, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has been cropped out of the picture. What makes this distortion especially egregious is that he was at the dinner because Rav Aharon Kotler pleaded with him to come and be the main speaker. I might add that his speech was a memorable occasion that I still cherish fifty years later. It served as an expression of how our most eminent leaders from different segments of Orthodoxy knew of their obligation to work together.
I am saddened by our inability to recognize that those who accept Torah and mitzvos are all part of a single community and that whatever our inevitable differences, we are obliged to cooperate. For fifty-five years my communal life has been predicated on the principle that whatever my personal choices, I am part of a community whose well-being requires a high degree of internal cooperation. I was active in both Agudath Israel and the Orthodox Union throughout the 1960's. In COLPA, I strove to link our disparate parts to achieve crucial goals. In all of my chinuch activity - the commitment that most defines what I stand for - I have been involved across the spectrum of Orthodox life. RJJ is an embodiment of this commitment.
What I stand for is a perspective that increasingly is shared by fewer and fewer people.
I would have preferred legislation that puts money directly into school coffers, patterned after the New York Textbook and Mandated Services legislation of more than a generation ago. While direct aid to schools under religious sponsorship raises constitutional issues that the new legislation likely avoids, I believe that the high-cost security and energy needs of parochial schools would have provided a sufficient constitutional leg to stand on.
One of the interesting features of recent developments is that the various segments of the Orthodox community essentially went on their separate ways. The new legislation offered a critical opportunity for Orthodox leaders and groups to sit down and try to work out a common strategy. Dream on. Orthodox leaders rarely meet these days across the communal divide, nor are they inclined to pick up the phone to discuss with persons outside of their small zone issues of critical importance. It seems at times that it is easier to get them to break bread with secular Jews than with fellow Orthodox of a somewhat different religious stripe.
Variety and conflict are inherent in religious experiences because people of faith inevitably disagree over what their faith requires. It should not be surprising or disturbing that we Orthodox Jews are awash in disagreement over halachic and hashkafic issues. Our history and responsa demonstrate that wherever Jewish life flourished, there was conflict regarding practices and, at times, even beliefs. There was, of course, consensus over fundamentals.
In the American experience, intra-Orthodox conflict was muted for an extended period, mainly because the Orthodox were weak and meek. With the emergence in the post-Holocaust years of a more assertive Orthodoxy, there was heightened conflict over Israel, relationships with the non-Orthodox, secular education and other matters. There was also a pattern of cooperation regarding a host of communal activities. In a sense, unity and disunity coexisted.
Decades ago, there was intense, even nasty, battling over membership in religious bodies together with non-Orthodox clergy and congregations, as well as the draft of young women into the Israeli army or the requirement that they do national service. These conflicts were serious business and they left scars. Yet, they did not impede cooperation between the different segments of Orthodoxy, as for example in the building of the day school movement in the U.S. or support for Chinuch Atzmai, the network of independent religious schools in Israel. Rav Aharon Kotler, the transcendent Torah leader, was at the center of this activity and though he was fiercely committed to intense Torah study and rigorous standards, he strenuously reached out to leaders across the spectrum of Orthodoxy.
When the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs or COLPA came into being forty years ago and I become its first president, conflict between the modern Orthodox and yeshiva world was not a barrier to cooperation on government aid to parochial schools or efforts to protect Sabbath observers against workplace discrimination. COLPA's briefs were signed by all Orthodox groups.
Nowadays, although differences remain over various practices and beliefs, there is a higher degree of unity at both the personal and communal levels. The Synagogue Council is no more, while conflict over Israel has abated. The Daf Hayomi experience and ArtScroll have forged a bond that unites Orthodox Jews in Torah study. It is true that yeshivas and day schools often operate like incompatible institutions and there are yawning differences regarding dress and other behaviors, specifically including how best to react to the outside world. But the separate communal segments are not at war.
Unfortunately, they also do not cooperate and interact as they once did. Each segment of Orthodoxy is on its own, making Shabbos for itself and frequently acting as if there are no other parts to be reckoned with. Leaders do not meet or talk and there scarcely are any forums for group interaction. This for a people who comprise perhaps 10-12% of American Jewry. The absence of intra-communal contacts certainly arises more from lifestyle changes than from ideology. Families are larger, we all have many more events to go to, most of us want to engage in Torah study and we can scarcely keep up with the barrage of messages coming our way through email, cell phones and whatever else technology has wrought. We are struggling to catch our breath and scarcely have time or energy for the sort of communal activity that once was esteemed.
Still, organizational ego serves as a barrier. In a way, each segment of Orthodoxy which represents no more than 2-3% of all of American Jews is saying that its four cubits are what count. This also means that increasingly we are saying that there is no one Orthodox community.
This diminishes our capacity to achieve mutual goals. It is telling - or should be - that for all of the noise coming from certain Orthodox groups that trumpet their achievements, over the last generation American Orthodoxy has achieved very little in the legislative and legal arenas. By dividing ourselves into little boxes, we have put on display our smallness. Interestingly, the New York legislative achievement is substantially the result of the efforts of people in the Syrian Jewish community.
Our current instinct to go it alone also results in the distortion of the past in order to make it compatible with how we now act and feel. An English language book has just been published on the life and teachings of the great Roshe Yeshiva of Lakewood. I trust that it has much merit, but it also puts on display the problem we face. There is a photograph from the first Chinuch Atzmai dinner which was held more than a half century ago. Amazingly, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik has been cropped out of the picture. What makes this distortion especially egregious is that he was at the dinner because Rav Aharon Kotler pleaded with him to come and be the main speaker. I might add that his speech was a memorable occasion that I still cherish fifty years later. It served as an expression of how our most eminent leaders from different segments of Orthodoxy knew of their obligation to work together.
I am saddened by our inability to recognize that those who accept Torah and mitzvos are all part of a single community and that whatever our inevitable differences, we are obliged to cooperate. For fifty-five years my communal life has been predicated on the principle that whatever my personal choices, I am part of a community whose well-being requires a high degree of internal cooperation. I was active in both Agudath Israel and the Orthodox Union throughout the 1960's. In COLPA, I strove to link our disparate parts to achieve crucial goals. In all of my chinuch activity - the commitment that most defines what I stand for - I have been involved across the spectrum of Orthodox life. RJJ is an embodiment of this commitment.
What I stand for is a perspective that increasingly is shared by fewer and fewer people.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Eight Months After Gaza
Eight months after their forced evacuation, which I supported though I had strong reservations regarding the way it was being handled, the emotional and physical wounds are still fresh for too many of the 9,000 ex-Gaza Israelis and yet the Olmert government-in-waiting is moving forward on plans to remove ten times that number of Israelis living on the West Bank. The lesson is that there is no lesson to learn from recent experience, that so what if there is no housing and other social infrastructure to resettle and provide basic needs for 80,000 or more Israelis. They will be deligitimated by the media and the government, as the Gazans were, as a prelude to getting their just desserts.
As wrongful as is the government's cavalier attitude to the welfare of its citizens, greater wrongs are in the offing. Mr. Sharon pulled out of Gaza because, it was said, withdrawal would make Israelis safer, if only because thousands of soldiers would not have to put their lives on the line to protect the settlers. Withdrawal would also give credibility to Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian Authority president, by showing that he could deliver the goods for his people.
Eight months is no more that a blink in history, yet what we have seen should give pause to anyone who debunks Henry Ford's notorious claim that history is bunk. The rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza, often from positions abandoned by Israel, are real. They are serious business, which is why senior military people are saying that the army may have to go back in and stay for a while. As for Mr. Abbas, Gaza withdrawal so fortified his position that his Fatah party was crushed by Hamas in the Palestinian elections.
Presumably, these inconvenient developments should alter the plans of those who expected a different scenario. But the bridge on the River Kwai must be built at all costs. Suicide bombers, Hamas' ascendancy and rockets from Gaza were not in the game plan, yet the chosen path must still be taken. The situation in the Middle East has deteriorated in recent months and this too should give pause. In Egypt, the semi-democratic Mubarak regime is increasingly unstable as it is relentlessly undermined by its own corruption and by the radicalized Moslem Brotherhood which, as one of its discontents, opposes Egyptian detente with Israel. Iraq is convulsed by sectarian conflict and whatever the outcome, the news for Israel will not be welcome. We all know about Iran. To add to the deeply disturbing brew, the Bush Administration is in deep trouble and this has limited its ability to provide diplomatic cover for Israel.
Is it unreasonable to suggest that Israel take a breather, that further withdrawals be suspended until the dust settles and Israeli policy makers can assess how best to advance the country's interests? To Ehud Olmert whose ambitions for Israel are spelled O-L-M-E-R-T and other officials who committed themselves to additional withdrawals, any pause is out of the question. They are determined to vacate most of the West Bank by the end of 2007. They should read Barbara Tuchman and other historians who have documented how the determination to stick to preconceived plans despite changing conditions or additional information resulted in diplomatic and military folly, even tragedy. Of course, those who ordered the light brigade to charge weren't interested in reading history.
Withdrawal is a primary component of what is referred to as unilaterilsm, the policy devised by Mr. Sharon to go it alone because Israel has no one to make peace with. Thus, Israel is building a security barrier and thus Israel will determine what territory to yield and which post-1967 population centers it will retain. Israel, it is said, will determine its permanent boundaries. This is a fantasy.
Unilateralism is a form of solitaire and like the game, it has utility, albeit quite limited. It works to a point on security matters, but it is a non-starter in all that entails diplomacy because its errant message is that negotiations can be safely discarded. In a word, unilateralism is vulnerable because it is unilateral.
Going it alone won't reduce pressure on Israel because foes and even friends will challenge the legitimacy of unilateral steps. Which governments will accept the claim that Israel can set its boundaries and that's the end of the story? For most governments, further withdrawals will be the beginning of the story, the starting point for direct negotiations regarding what else Israel must yield. For Palestinians and the Islamic world, further Israeli withdrawals are a signal that hostility bears fruit.
Further withdrawals under today's conditions are wrong and not because Israel needs to show the Palestinians or anyone else that it can be tough. Further withdrawals are wrong because they are reckless acts predicated on the refusal to examine old policy assumptions in the light of what has happened since last summer.
Of course, Mr. Olmert and the government he shall soon form can claim that last month's Knesset elections provide a clear mandate for what is being planned, especially since the issues that I raise here were debated and, by a significant majority, Israeli voters opted for those who favor further withdrawals. This majority is to be respected regarding governance, but the democratic outcome is no impediment to the collateral democratic prerogative to challenge what legitimately elected officials decide to do. Mr. Bush won a clear majority in 2004, way after the U.S. went into Iraq, and his election has not deterred sharp criticism of American policy. Even supporters of the Iraq intervention acknowledge that changed conditions must mandate a change in policy.
To ignore what has happened since Israel left Gaza is on its face a clear and present danger for the Jewish state.
As wrongful as is the government's cavalier attitude to the welfare of its citizens, greater wrongs are in the offing. Mr. Sharon pulled out of Gaza because, it was said, withdrawal would make Israelis safer, if only because thousands of soldiers would not have to put their lives on the line to protect the settlers. Withdrawal would also give credibility to Mahmoud Abbas, the new Palestinian Authority president, by showing that he could deliver the goods for his people.
Eight months is no more that a blink in history, yet what we have seen should give pause to anyone who debunks Henry Ford's notorious claim that history is bunk. The rockets being fired into Israel from Gaza, often from positions abandoned by Israel, are real. They are serious business, which is why senior military people are saying that the army may have to go back in and stay for a while. As for Mr. Abbas, Gaza withdrawal so fortified his position that his Fatah party was crushed by Hamas in the Palestinian elections.
Presumably, these inconvenient developments should alter the plans of those who expected a different scenario. But the bridge on the River Kwai must be built at all costs. Suicide bombers, Hamas' ascendancy and rockets from Gaza were not in the game plan, yet the chosen path must still be taken. The situation in the Middle East has deteriorated in recent months and this too should give pause. In Egypt, the semi-democratic Mubarak regime is increasingly unstable as it is relentlessly undermined by its own corruption and by the radicalized Moslem Brotherhood which, as one of its discontents, opposes Egyptian detente with Israel. Iraq is convulsed by sectarian conflict and whatever the outcome, the news for Israel will not be welcome. We all know about Iran. To add to the deeply disturbing brew, the Bush Administration is in deep trouble and this has limited its ability to provide diplomatic cover for Israel.
Is it unreasonable to suggest that Israel take a breather, that further withdrawals be suspended until the dust settles and Israeli policy makers can assess how best to advance the country's interests? To Ehud Olmert whose ambitions for Israel are spelled O-L-M-E-R-T and other officials who committed themselves to additional withdrawals, any pause is out of the question. They are determined to vacate most of the West Bank by the end of 2007. They should read Barbara Tuchman and other historians who have documented how the determination to stick to preconceived plans despite changing conditions or additional information resulted in diplomatic and military folly, even tragedy. Of course, those who ordered the light brigade to charge weren't interested in reading history.
Withdrawal is a primary component of what is referred to as unilaterilsm, the policy devised by Mr. Sharon to go it alone because Israel has no one to make peace with. Thus, Israel is building a security barrier and thus Israel will determine what territory to yield and which post-1967 population centers it will retain. Israel, it is said, will determine its permanent boundaries. This is a fantasy.
Unilateralism is a form of solitaire and like the game, it has utility, albeit quite limited. It works to a point on security matters, but it is a non-starter in all that entails diplomacy because its errant message is that negotiations can be safely discarded. In a word, unilateralism is vulnerable because it is unilateral.
Going it alone won't reduce pressure on Israel because foes and even friends will challenge the legitimacy of unilateral steps. Which governments will accept the claim that Israel can set its boundaries and that's the end of the story? For most governments, further withdrawals will be the beginning of the story, the starting point for direct negotiations regarding what else Israel must yield. For Palestinians and the Islamic world, further Israeli withdrawals are a signal that hostility bears fruit.
Further withdrawals under today's conditions are wrong and not because Israel needs to show the Palestinians or anyone else that it can be tough. Further withdrawals are wrong because they are reckless acts predicated on the refusal to examine old policy assumptions in the light of what has happened since last summer.
Of course, Mr. Olmert and the government he shall soon form can claim that last month's Knesset elections provide a clear mandate for what is being planned, especially since the issues that I raise here were debated and, by a significant majority, Israeli voters opted for those who favor further withdrawals. This majority is to be respected regarding governance, but the democratic outcome is no impediment to the collateral democratic prerogative to challenge what legitimately elected officials decide to do. Mr. Bush won a clear majority in 2004, way after the U.S. went into Iraq, and his election has not deterred sharp criticism of American policy. Even supporters of the Iraq intervention acknowledge that changed conditions must mandate a change in policy.
To ignore what has happened since Israel left Gaza is on its face a clear and present danger for the Jewish state.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Not Kosher But Traditional
While we continue to be awash in population studies and other statistical exercises, our best sociological nuggets are found in ordinary Jewish life, in what we read and what we see. We should curb our voracious appetite for numbers games and pay attention to happenings that serve as a window into a world where at once Jews are rapidly abandoning what it has meant to be Jewish even as they earnest seek to cling to their Jewish identity.
As an exhibit, there is the ad placed in the Times by Lattanzi, a mid-Manhattan eatery, seeking patrons for its "Non-Kosher Traditional Passover Menu," and announcing that "private seders are welcome." Even in an era when a "trend" is something that happens twice and a "tradition" is whatever a handful of people designate as such, we probably should not be surprised that Pesach is being celebrated in this fashion. After all, we now have non-Jewish Jews, they being persons who aren't Jewish by any definition. A great number of participants in contemporary seders are not Jewish and the number is growing. Doubtlessly, we will have additional sociological realities that invert Judaism by designating as Jewish practices that which always was alien to Judaism.
Whatever history's verdict on such innovations or the obvious hostility of these developments to halacha, sociological realities are what is taking place today, not how we behaved previously or what we expect to happen down the road. Today's realities speak of a critical mass of persons who somehow are designated as Jews who want to be Jewish in ways that previously were not thought to be Jewish. Although intermarriage takes an ever-increasing toll and Judaic abandonment ensnares greater numbers, this critical mass is expanding. Perhaps paradoxically, it is aggressively fed by those who have intermarried and who want to remain committed Jews and also by their non-Jewish spouses and family members who also somehow want to identify as Jews, as well as by persons who aren't Jewish and have no Jewish family ties but who somehow want to be tied to the contemporary Jewish experience.
Orthodox Jews, myself included, can decry this odd malange and say that history will show that much of what is now being passed off as Jewish was bogus, as in fact it surely is. Yet, we live in the present and decide and act in the present and what we are witness to are powerful realities that expand as the ranks of those who have departed from traditional Judaism expand.
The smaller number that clings to religion and tradition cannot build a communal fence that excludes this critical mass and perhaps they choose not to build such a fence. Persons of questionable status are routinely included in all sorts of communal transactions, ranging from demographic surveys to conferences to fundraising and a multitude of projects. We do not hear advocates of tradition saying that claims of five-million American Jews are errant because many who are included should not be, as they aren't Jewish according to religious law. We are caught in a process that feeds on itself, a process that we cannot escape and may not want to escape.
This process results in creative efforts to accommodate the polar tendencies of abandonment and identity. A Times' front-page story reports on synagogues departing from their regular routine in order to attract newcomers. "Jewish leaders," we are told, "are revamping worship in their synagogues to make the experience more lively and participatory; they are reconfiguring their sanctuaries to make them less intimidating; they are rethinking how to welcome newcomers; and they are getting increasingly creative about getting people in the door."
It's obvious that the services are too long in many synagogues, especially those that seek to attract people who are not religiously committed and who often cannot follow the liturgy. Although it is not possible to be optimistic that innovations will achieve much in view of the toll taken by intermarriage and other forms of advanced assimilation, the notion that our religious activities must have more emotional content and adapt to what people find attractive has merit. It isn't sufficient to dismiss innovations and not only because such dismissals are feeble protests against realities that cannot be readily dismissed.
It is also true that we ought not embrace every proposed change on the ground that tradition is yesterday's story. The most effective innovations are those that have some link with the past and move people toward tradition and religious commitment. If the goal of innovation is to attract the unaffiliated and nothing more, what is being instituted is ephemeral and soon will be gone.
Furthermore, efforts to attract those who are distant and alienated cannot succeed - that is, not have long-lasting results - unless there is a strong religious infrastructure throughout American Jewish life that serves as a magnet drawing those who are being attracted to greater commitment and religiosity. Else, the innovations will be empty shells or to borrow from the Times' headline, they will consist of yoga, comedy, parties and other fluff that do not need synagogues as props. It should be obvious that without Jews of strong religious commitment, there scarcely will be anything Jewish about the new outreach techniques.
This lesson is unfortunately lost on many who have the keys to our communal priorities. Inadvertently or not, they disparage that which has sustained Judaism, choosing instead to exalt trivial pursuits whose only hope for success is dependent on there being meaningful Jewish experiences down the road. If we are going to add the bathwater, let's not throw out the baby.
As an exhibit, there is the ad placed in the Times by Lattanzi, a mid-Manhattan eatery, seeking patrons for its "Non-Kosher Traditional Passover Menu," and announcing that "private seders are welcome." Even in an era when a "trend" is something that happens twice and a "tradition" is whatever a handful of people designate as such, we probably should not be surprised that Pesach is being celebrated in this fashion. After all, we now have non-Jewish Jews, they being persons who aren't Jewish by any definition. A great number of participants in contemporary seders are not Jewish and the number is growing. Doubtlessly, we will have additional sociological realities that invert Judaism by designating as Jewish practices that which always was alien to Judaism.
Whatever history's verdict on such innovations or the obvious hostility of these developments to halacha, sociological realities are what is taking place today, not how we behaved previously or what we expect to happen down the road. Today's realities speak of a critical mass of persons who somehow are designated as Jews who want to be Jewish in ways that previously were not thought to be Jewish. Although intermarriage takes an ever-increasing toll and Judaic abandonment ensnares greater numbers, this critical mass is expanding. Perhaps paradoxically, it is aggressively fed by those who have intermarried and who want to remain committed Jews and also by their non-Jewish spouses and family members who also somehow want to identify as Jews, as well as by persons who aren't Jewish and have no Jewish family ties but who somehow want to be tied to the contemporary Jewish experience.
Orthodox Jews, myself included, can decry this odd malange and say that history will show that much of what is now being passed off as Jewish was bogus, as in fact it surely is. Yet, we live in the present and decide and act in the present and what we are witness to are powerful realities that expand as the ranks of those who have departed from traditional Judaism expand.
The smaller number that clings to religion and tradition cannot build a communal fence that excludes this critical mass and perhaps they choose not to build such a fence. Persons of questionable status are routinely included in all sorts of communal transactions, ranging from demographic surveys to conferences to fundraising and a multitude of projects. We do not hear advocates of tradition saying that claims of five-million American Jews are errant because many who are included should not be, as they aren't Jewish according to religious law. We are caught in a process that feeds on itself, a process that we cannot escape and may not want to escape.
This process results in creative efforts to accommodate the polar tendencies of abandonment and identity. A Times' front-page story reports on synagogues departing from their regular routine in order to attract newcomers. "Jewish leaders," we are told, "are revamping worship in their synagogues to make the experience more lively and participatory; they are reconfiguring their sanctuaries to make them less intimidating; they are rethinking how to welcome newcomers; and they are getting increasingly creative about getting people in the door."
It's obvious that the services are too long in many synagogues, especially those that seek to attract people who are not religiously committed and who often cannot follow the liturgy. Although it is not possible to be optimistic that innovations will achieve much in view of the toll taken by intermarriage and other forms of advanced assimilation, the notion that our religious activities must have more emotional content and adapt to what people find attractive has merit. It isn't sufficient to dismiss innovations and not only because such dismissals are feeble protests against realities that cannot be readily dismissed.
It is also true that we ought not embrace every proposed change on the ground that tradition is yesterday's story. The most effective innovations are those that have some link with the past and move people toward tradition and religious commitment. If the goal of innovation is to attract the unaffiliated and nothing more, what is being instituted is ephemeral and soon will be gone.
Furthermore, efforts to attract those who are distant and alienated cannot succeed - that is, not have long-lasting results - unless there is a strong religious infrastructure throughout American Jewish life that serves as a magnet drawing those who are being attracted to greater commitment and religiosity. Else, the innovations will be empty shells or to borrow from the Times' headline, they will consist of yoga, comedy, parties and other fluff that do not need synagogues as props. It should be obvious that without Jews of strong religious commitment, there scarcely will be anything Jewish about the new outreach techniques.
This lesson is unfortunately lost on many who have the keys to our communal priorities. Inadvertently or not, they disparage that which has sustained Judaism, choosing instead to exalt trivial pursuits whose only hope for success is dependent on there being meaningful Jewish experiences down the road. If we are going to add the bathwater, let's not throw out the baby.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Those 'Powerful' Jewish Lobbyists
Tucked into a recent New York Times and, I suspect, read by few was a brief item with the bland headline "Software Company Abandons Deal."
This is not the sort of bait to pique readers' interest, yet it provides insight into how powerful Israel is - or is not - in Washington.
CheckPoint, an Israeli company, was forced by the Bush administration to drop plans to buy a small American software firm. The decision came "near the conclusion of a full-blown investigation by the same American panel that approved the now-abandoned ports deal involving DP World."
This body was expected to rule against the Israelis because "the transaction could endanger some of government's most secretive computer systems." Baloney.
While this latest demonstration of Israeli "influence" in Washington was unfolding, Stephen Walt, dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago were putting the finishing touches to a paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," which posits that American Jews and others whom we control got the United States into the war in Iraq. More generally, the claim is that the Israel lobby, headed by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, has vast influence in determining American foreign policy.
Those who want to think ill of Jews or Israel do not need material. Their fervid minds provide all they need to feed their dark fantasies. They know what to misread and what to exaggerate, what to link to their conspiratorial mind-set and what contrary evidence to distort or ignore.
Those who dislike Israel conveniently disregard US arm-twisting and expanding American interference in Israeli diplomatic and commercial activity, most crucially relating to China and India.
Israel bashers ignore that key AIPAC staffers are under indictment for alleged criminal charges of a kind that have never been brought against anyone else. It matters not at all to them that the White House says Dubai can buy up US ports, but an Israeli company cannot buy an American software company.
Reality does not dislodge the blind faith of Israel-bashers that Israel and Jews are in control. They will scarcely notice, several weeks from now when the dust settles on Israel's election and the new government is formed, that Condoleezza Rice will be putting intense pressure on Ehud Olmert to make concessions not in Israel's interest.
YET IT is right to enquire whether our Israel advocacy bears good fruit, or is counterproductive. The assumption is that we should continue doing what we have been doing - no questions asked. Organized American Jewry seems to have checked its intellect at the door, part of what I see as an extraordinary dumbing-down process that should be an embarrassment to people who once exalted the intellect and ideas.
AIPAC is a prime example of our refusal to raise vital questions. Each year in Washington it stages a massive extravaganza befitting a national party convention. Trotted out are more House and Senate members than can be found on the floor of Congress and there are loads of top administration officials and machers from Israel. The purposeful message sent by this display is that Jews are powerful, that Israel has great influence in Washington.
AIPAC wants everyone to believe that it is a powerhouse. We should not be surprised, then, when those who look at Israel through hostile eyes interpret what they see as evidence that the Israel lobby is all-powerful. We kvetch when others get the message that is intentionally sent.
This might be a reasonable price to pay if AIPAC made a difference. It does not. At the end of the day, other considerations determine Israel-US relations on all matters that count. At the end of the day, AIPAC is a bunch of shvitzers and people who run around a lot, acting like big shots who do not have power, although they do make noise, mainly for fund-raising purposes.
REAL INFLUENCE? Try Saudi Arabia, which connived with the White House to spirit dozens of its key people out of this country immediately after 9/11; or when it arranged back-channel military purchases from the US through Germany. Real influence is Dubai buying US ports with White House approval.
When the US demands control of Israel's relations with China, vetoes Israeli commercial activity in the US, brings criminal charges against AIPAC people and twists Israel's diplomatic arm constantly - that ain't influence. All the noise made by AIPAC and other advocates for Israel cannot change this reality.
Whether with respect to diplomacy or other spheres of activity, true influence is exerted quietly. Noise and publicity are antithetical to influence.
The chances that American Jewish leaders will reflect on the lobbying tactics that we cling to are zero. We believe that hoopla and attention are signs of success. Like those who bash Israel, reality is not allowed to intrude on fantasy.
And while it is truly meritorious for pro-Israel activists to be making the case for the Jewish state - we need to rethink how best to do so.
I fear that we are trapped in arrangements that promote self-deception. We seem to lack the capacity to evaluate the utility of our current stratagems.
I wish it could be otherwise. I wish we did not give ammunition to those who bash us by promoting the wrongful perception that we are powerful.
This is not the sort of bait to pique readers' interest, yet it provides insight into how powerful Israel is - or is not - in Washington.
CheckPoint, an Israeli company, was forced by the Bush administration to drop plans to buy a small American software firm. The decision came "near the conclusion of a full-blown investigation by the same American panel that approved the now-abandoned ports deal involving DP World."
This body was expected to rule against the Israelis because "the transaction could endanger some of government's most secretive computer systems." Baloney.
While this latest demonstration of Israeli "influence" in Washington was unfolding, Stephen Walt, dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago were putting the finishing touches to a paper entitled "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," which posits that American Jews and others whom we control got the United States into the war in Iraq. More generally, the claim is that the Israel lobby, headed by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, has vast influence in determining American foreign policy.
Those who want to think ill of Jews or Israel do not need material. Their fervid minds provide all they need to feed their dark fantasies. They know what to misread and what to exaggerate, what to link to their conspiratorial mind-set and what contrary evidence to distort or ignore.
Those who dislike Israel conveniently disregard US arm-twisting and expanding American interference in Israeli diplomatic and commercial activity, most crucially relating to China and India.
Israel bashers ignore that key AIPAC staffers are under indictment for alleged criminal charges of a kind that have never been brought against anyone else. It matters not at all to them that the White House says Dubai can buy up US ports, but an Israeli company cannot buy an American software company.
Reality does not dislodge the blind faith of Israel-bashers that Israel and Jews are in control. They will scarcely notice, several weeks from now when the dust settles on Israel's election and the new government is formed, that Condoleezza Rice will be putting intense pressure on Ehud Olmert to make concessions not in Israel's interest.
YET IT is right to enquire whether our Israel advocacy bears good fruit, or is counterproductive. The assumption is that we should continue doing what we have been doing - no questions asked. Organized American Jewry seems to have checked its intellect at the door, part of what I see as an extraordinary dumbing-down process that should be an embarrassment to people who once exalted the intellect and ideas.
AIPAC is a prime example of our refusal to raise vital questions. Each year in Washington it stages a massive extravaganza befitting a national party convention. Trotted out are more House and Senate members than can be found on the floor of Congress and there are loads of top administration officials and machers from Israel. The purposeful message sent by this display is that Jews are powerful, that Israel has great influence in Washington.
AIPAC wants everyone to believe that it is a powerhouse. We should not be surprised, then, when those who look at Israel through hostile eyes interpret what they see as evidence that the Israel lobby is all-powerful. We kvetch when others get the message that is intentionally sent.
This might be a reasonable price to pay if AIPAC made a difference. It does not. At the end of the day, other considerations determine Israel-US relations on all matters that count. At the end of the day, AIPAC is a bunch of shvitzers and people who run around a lot, acting like big shots who do not have power, although they do make noise, mainly for fund-raising purposes.
REAL INFLUENCE? Try Saudi Arabia, which connived with the White House to spirit dozens of its key people out of this country immediately after 9/11; or when it arranged back-channel military purchases from the US through Germany. Real influence is Dubai buying US ports with White House approval.
When the US demands control of Israel's relations with China, vetoes Israeli commercial activity in the US, brings criminal charges against AIPAC people and twists Israel's diplomatic arm constantly - that ain't influence. All the noise made by AIPAC and other advocates for Israel cannot change this reality.
Whether with respect to diplomacy or other spheres of activity, true influence is exerted quietly. Noise and publicity are antithetical to influence.
The chances that American Jewish leaders will reflect on the lobbying tactics that we cling to are zero. We believe that hoopla and attention are signs of success. Like those who bash Israel, reality is not allowed to intrude on fantasy.
And while it is truly meritorious for pro-Israel activists to be making the case for the Jewish state - we need to rethink how best to do so.
I fear that we are trapped in arrangements that promote self-deception. We seem to lack the capacity to evaluate the utility of our current stratagems.
I wish it could be otherwise. I wish we did not give ammunition to those who bash us by promoting the wrongful perception that we are powerful.
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