Israel at 75 is up to us

“When Israel has prostitutes and thieves, we’ll be a state just like any other," was David Ben-Gurion's famous line about achieving a true place among the nations. Decades later, a few of us joined Ben-Gurion's late protege -- and our own beloved mentor -- Ralph Goldman to visit the Tel Aviv home of Israel's first and greatest Prime Minister. Ralph showed us the small kitchen table where BG would read and drink his coffee, and the sink where he'd wash out his own cup when he was finished. Imagine, the founder of modern Israel washing out his own coffee cup...

Fast-forward to today, as Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary. It has fulfilled so much Biblical prophecy, including the ingathering of exiles and shining a light unto the nations in countless dimensions. Israel has a first-rate military and economy, it has top-ranked arts and sciences, and its legitimacy is now almost universally accepted. It's also been home to its share of prostitutes and thieves, and tonight its Prime Minister is known for the kind of extravagant high living that Ben-Gurion wouldn't even have recognized.

 
Benjamin Netanyahu has also assembled a governing coalition that seems hell-bent on erasing the values and political culture to which all the founders including the right-wingers had pledged themselves. His top priority is revoking the independence of the judiciary even as convicted criminals and terror suspects serve in his government and as he himself is on trial for public corruption.

Israel was far from perfect before, and now it certainly faces the greatest challenge to the rule of law in its history. But is it so different from the United States of Trump, Orban's Hungary, Bolsonaro's Brazil, or Berlusconi's Italy? All these leaders and their movements have collaborated together and been extolled by the same MAGA strategists and cheered on by Vladimir Putin. And all these countries remain vibrant societies vigorously debating their identities and futures.

In this century, no major Israeli party has run an election on the Palestinian issue, while Netanyahu has done his best to exacerbate, sideline and leverage it for his own political purposes. Now, belatedly, the Israeli left seems to be connecting some of the dots between occupation, mob vengeance, and rule of law. We'll have to see if it's too late.

So these are the stakes.

Around the world, democracy and decency are on the ballot, and even when they win the results are challenged and denied. Yes, Israel is part of this seamy dynamic. The murderous Saudi crown prince cuts business deals with Netanyahu and with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Sudan's military junta is only too happy to be courted by the Jewish state amid the gun battles of Khartoum. But millions of Israelis have also taken to the streets, and this week even the loyalist American Jewish Federations are considered in play, with Netanyahu declining to show up for the ultimate Israel-Diaspora victory lap.

From that sunny day in 1970 when our ship first pulled into Haifa port, Israel has been part of me. Not as an American Zionist theme park, but as a true homeland with real people and real challenges, and one worth fighting for.

I have hope for Israel's future, and I believe deeply in its religious and prophetic significance. My critiques of Netanyahu et al these past 15 years have certainly cost me professionally and socially, but my intent was always to avert just such a crisis as we see now.

Tonight, after remembering the fallen, I will be celebrating the existence of Israel, the spirit of Israelis, and the aspiration to continue and perfect this sacred and historic undertaking, and never to take its existence or its democracy for granted. Even when it hurts.

Today, honoring the Meron victims

Last week's tragedy hits very close to home for me, as for so many Jews in Israel and the United States, where we're never more than two degrees removed from anyone. Greeting Shabbat Friday night was more difficult than I'd anticipated, as I realized just how many Jews would be missing this and all future Sabbaths — many of whom I could easily have sat across from at a Shabbat table.

Golda Meir was Prime Minister when I attended my first of overnight Lag b'Omer celebrations at Mount Meron, and I've been to a few more over the years. It is always a special, deeply spiritual, overcrowded and utterly crazy experience. I remember some Sephardic families arriving with the sheep they would be slaughtering and eating in large tents over their extended stay, music and hawkers on loudspeakers, bonfires, and hasidic fathers dancing with their three-year-old sons after their ceremonial first haircut. In the 21st century, it's become more high-tech and clearly no less chaotic.

One of those visits was the year after high school graduation, the same point in life as some of Thursday's victims. With various highs and lows over the decades since, it is hard and sobering to imagine if my life had ended decades ago on that night. 

According to Jewish tradition, however we spend eternity isn't nearly as important as what we do with our limited time here on this earth. This life is our only opportunity to accumulate merits, to exercise our free will and choose the path of God, including prayer and hundreds of commandments that guide our days, our annual calendar, and our lifecycle. We must not take this life for granted.

Fulfilling these commandments can be a source of great joy, especially on special occasions like Lag b'Omer, the 33rd day of the annual period of mourning for the thousands of scholars who died from plague two millennia ago. The dead cannot pray, the dead cannot freely serve God. We are supposed to keep our tzitzit (prayer fringes) tucked in when walking past a cemetery, lest we taunt those who can no longer perform such mitzvot (God's commandments).

As the State of Israel observes an official day of mourning for the 45 people who were lost last Thursday night at Meron, opposite the holy city of Tzfat, I urge my fellow Jews to be mindful, recite appropriate Tehillim (passages from Psalms), and make an extra effort to perform mitzvot in the merit of these souls who can no longer fulfill their obligations.

To honor these 45 men and boys who will never again wear tefillin (prayer straps mandated in Deuteronomy), I specifically encourage everyone with access to a set of tefillin to do so today. With special gratitude for the gift we enjoy of life and of service to our Creator. I have no doubt that every one of these holy Jews held the daily mitzvah of tefillin in high regard and never lost sight of its importance, and always considered a pleasure rather than a burden. (The one 12-year old among them must have been so excited about beginning this practice ahead of his 13th birthday.)

They came to Meron to express devotion to a higher calling, and to do so with joy. I ask anyone who can to aspire likewise, today of all days.

May their memories be a blessing.

A Personal Steinsaltz

I first got to know the late Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (Even-Israel) in the early 1990s when he came to Washington as a scholar-in-residence, together with his adolescent son Meni. I already knew him as the greatest living Torah scholar, having studied Talmud using his Hebrew-language commentaries. There was so much more that he accomplished and impacted, which requires separately a long and thorough reckoning by accomplished scholars. My post is personal.

In 1992, I found myself working in Moscow and spending a couple of Shabbats a month at the relatively new Steinsaltz yeshiva in the wooded suburb of Kuntsevo. The campus had been the dacha of the Mayor of Moscow; it was charming and rustic, and for most of the Russian Jewish young men studying there it was luxurious. I didn’t see Rabbi Steinsaltz diring my time there, but his spirit of reigniting post-Soviet Jewish life through knowledge and fellowship pervaded.

A few years later, I arrived in Geneva to find Meni was getting his start as a Lubavitch emissary ("shaliach") at Beth Habad de Geneve, which led to many other adventures and a deep friendship all its own. Although personally he was affiliated with the Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Steinsaltz engaged and identified publicly with an 'all of Judaism' approach, which indeed may represent the most powerful expression of Lubavitch aspirations.

Not unlike some other spiritual giants, including the Dalai Lama, Rabbi Steinsaltz could also display an impish sense of humor. Always needing funds for his many initiatives, he visited Geneva once and gave a well attended speech. The front row was filled with some of the wealthiest Jews in Geneva — an international set, ready to be appeased as well as impressed. After being introduced and welcomed with great fanfare, the famous sage opened his remarks by noting that people in Geneva only ever want to talk about money. If not for the emanation of holiness through his presence in the room, I am sure that three or four of the organizers would have died from shock right on the spot.

Once in the mid-1990s, I drove from Geneva to pick up Rabbi Steinsaltz at Charles de Gaulle airport and bring him in to Paris for a one-on-one shmooze before his other meetings — is there any better way to spend an afternoon?? With cell phones still a luxury, I waited out front until he came out the automatic doors. After he settled into the passenger seat, I explained respectfully that I couldn't in good conscience risk the life of such a Torah sage. I offered him a choice: He could either keep his seat belt unbuckled or he could continue smoking his pipe. He graciously chose to buckle up and puff away.

The Steinsaltz home in Jerusalem had such an unassuming air of normalcy that I'd have to remind myself who I was with. But that was his way. He was the last person who would ever express any sense of his own importance. His concern for others was constant, and his wisdom just trickled out in the course of conversation.

Through Meni and the late Ralph Goldman, the visionary-in-chief of the Joint Distribution Committee — and sometimes through my official duties — I was blessed with numerous opportunities to experience Rabbi Steinsaltz up close. On occasion I may have been of some use to him, but mostly I was not there through my own merit or importance. Each time was a gift.

I never needed reminding of how precious these encounters were. Now that he's left the physical realm, I feel his presence and his impetus to do more and facilitate more to advance his ethos and vision. And to share some of what I and many others were able to see firsthand of the way he lived his life.

May we all be blessed and sanctified through his memory.

Pittsburgh's uneasy spotlight

You don’t have to be Jewish to have deep feelings about last week’s terror attack in Pittsburgh. And there is no shortage of emotions and deeper meanings to take away from this horror. Here are a few of my own early thoughts.

Of course for many of us, the Pittsburgh attack is close to home. I’ve been in the Tree of Life for a wedding long ago, and Jews are all connected. And as a security volunteer in another synagogue hundreds of miles away, I was actively dealing with safeguarding and with liaison to our local police. But somehow it’s more, and I’m choosing here to leave out the very compelling political and security ramifications because I think there’s something innate that also merits exploration. 

Perhaps we (somewhat like Israelis) have tried to put the shame of victimhood behind us. We watch the massacres and violence around the United States and we sympathize, empathize, pledge solidarity, and step up to help. But now we Jews are in the spotlight, we are the ones receiving sympathy and assistance. Cable news is focused on US. Not Israel, not a multi-ethnic public school, not a military base. 

We have the spotlight right now, and we may not all agree on how to use it. But it feels very strange to be noticed for what was done to us, and not for what we have done -- whether good deeds or bad. Almost unavoidably, we are objectified. Our rabbis are elevated to the national stage, “Shabbat” is a term mentioned by CNN, and the Jewish experience and current trauma have been universalized to a national and international audience.
Maybe this just takes some getting used to. And maybe the pain and sorrow are still too overwhelming.

LGBTQ, Jews, and Israel? It's complicated.

Many in the Jewish community seem dazed by the recent incident in Chicago, where marchers with a Magen David-emblazoned rainbow flag were ejected from this year's Dyke March. Though this exclusion seems unambiguously offensive and hypocritical, I believe there are many sides to what happened. Here are a few of my own thoughts:

1. The organizers seem to have taken their own decision, so this need not reflect a consensus within the Chicago LGBTQ community.

2. But in Chicago, of all places... REALLY??

3. We should not assume that everyone demanding acceptance is equally committed to accepting of others. Nor should we assume that everyone with an inherent LGBTQ identity is automatically "progressive", that "progressive" carries the same meaning for everyone, or that Israel and its advocates naturally deserve a place at the progressive table.

4. The Magen David (Star of David) was consciously adopted as the symbol of Israel, a sovereign state with policies and enemies. Attacking that symbol does not necessarily reflect anti-Semitic intent. Within the Jewish community, there is now a flare-up of tensions regarding access to the Western Wall and the underpinnings of the relationship between Jewishness and the State of Israel; with no hint of irony, Chicago's own Jewish Federation -- which has long condemned boycotts against Israel -- is now boycotting any Knesset Member who voted for new restrictions on conversions to Judaism.

5. Israel does engage in a bit of 'pinkwashing' hasbara, as though being the most LGBTQ-friendly Mideast nation outweighs anything it does vis-à-vis Palestinians. Seeing Jews march with a Magen David on their rainbow flag may have engendered some resentment in this regard.

6. Jared and Ivanka, and even President Trump, have been trading on their LGBTQ hip, while the Administration and the GOP shamelessly target that community's equal rights. Many in Israel and in the Orthodox community are disproportionately and publicly supportive of POTUS and his exclusionary, divisive agenda. We may start seeing more reactions targeting Jews and Jewish symbols in misguided retaliation for this perceived complicity. I doubt our organizations or leadership have dared to analyze or prepare much for such potential manifestations.

7. Chicago has a very active and visible Jewish community and a Mayor with well-known personal and family ties to Israel. Somehow, I am not overly worried, especially in light of the widespread coverage and condemnation of the incident.

Do US Jews value pluralism over justice?

I am outraged by Israel's long years of bait-and-switch with Judaism's non-Orthodox denominations, most of whom fervently support and advocate for the Jewish state, culminating in the latest decision to abandon even a compromise of their basic religious rights. This last straw in a long-running scam to exclude and demonize non-Orthodox Jews should rattle us all to our core.

Equally striking, however, is the general contrast between our community's instant and very public outrage over this spiritual and emotional offense, which targets mostly absentee co-religionists who otherwise enjoy freedom of travel and self-expression vs. the daily and hourly humiliation and subjugation of 2+ million Palestinians -- whose plight, regardless of who is at fault, is at least somewhat and significantly in the hands of the same Israeli government which has now again inconvenienced and insulted Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews. 

Unless as a throwaway line with which to blame "the Arabs" and excuse Israel, even mentioning the Palestinians' situation commonly engenders charges of anti-Semitism and perfidy hurled reflexively by Federation leaders, pulpit rabbis, radio hosts, and blog idols of the official pro-Israel line. Speakers are disinvited, academic tenures are threatened. 

The American Jewish Diaspora won't dare notice -- and actively distracts from the reality -- that Palestinians are routinely and daily denied basic human dignity, rights and services, except to blame and denigrate the Palestinians themselves. Yet, for over three decades, to have one integral but single right -- the right to non-Orthodox observance, including "Who is a Jew" -- denied them in the land of our forefathers is an existential crisis demanding urgent moral umbrage.

In most cases, the same American Jewish establishment which once again warns vocally and righteously of the specter of an alienated American Jewry still thinks little of the Palestinians who live within sight of the Western Wall. As a community, we staunchly defend the Israeli Government's actions with regard to the basic rights of Palestinians, then we turn around and expect that same government to show remorse for how it allows us to pray and validate conversions. 

If this is the Light Unto the Nations, then which nations do we mean? And if we cannot even bear to hear the prayers and grievances of those under our immediate or indirect control, then how can we expect God to hear our own entreaties at the site of his Holy Temple?

Trump has no credibility to pledge "Never again"

It has been reported that President Trump will address Tuesday's "Yom Hashoah" Holocaust commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition to Holocaust exhibits and documentation, the Museum very consciously houses the Committee on Conscience and the Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

Today, addressing the World Jewish Congress via video, he pledged, "We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found." And finally, months after his White House denied the need to mention Jews in connection with the Holocaust, he did mention Hitler's six million Jewish targeted victims. But his rhetoric is very thin on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and ignores his administration's consistent refusal to act in support of contemporary victims of mass killings and of racial and religious persecution, even while he and his aides routinely appeal to Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia here in the United States.

Unless he announces that he's abandoning the border wall, dropping the arbitrary ban on refugees and certain Muslim states, and firing the "Alt-Right" white supremacists and the second-generation card-carrying Nazi working inside his own West Wing, anything he says there can be nothing more than a desecration and betrayal of the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Singling out Jews for special recognition and protection, while actively sowing fear and hostility toward so many other minorities, does us no favors.

If neutrality was a sin during WWII, what is acquiescence today?

Observing the unfolding dystopia known as President Trump's immigration regime, I am reminded of my experiences in Switzerland. That country's "neutrality" throughout World War II also serves as a warning against acquiescence and indifference. 

On my first visit to Stein am Rhein over 25 years ago, I wandered about that medieval walled city northeast of Zurich. I overpaid for an eyeglass case, marveled at the outdoor frescos along the main square, hiked through the vineyards up to the Hohenklingen castle, gazed out upon the Swiss landscape and across into Germany. I followed a winding road along the Untersee, past lakeside villas, and reached the border with Germany. I passed the border post, which resembled a toll plaza without gates or payment, and now I was in Germany. 

I have been to Germany many times over the years, originally crossing between the Communist East and the free West, including divided Berlin, which in its reunified form has become one of my favorite cities. Knowing we could cross through the Berlin Wall while East Germans were risking their lives for the same chance was a formative experience for a five-year-old lucky enough to have been born in freedom. On one visit in the 1970s, I was already old enough -- and it was still early enough -- that I could reasonably imagine any middle-aged man on the street as a young soldier in Hitler's army. In our new millennium, I was fortunate to work very closely with the German government to come to terms with that past, and to lead the fight against a newer surge of anti-Semitism and xenophobia. 

Thanks to Trump, Jared's Jewishness is not off limits

Not only as an American, but as a Jew, I am embarrassed by Donald Trump. So what do about it?

Without questioning the religiosity of individual Jews, I do think the President and his team -- including his extended family -- have put the question of Jewish affiliation on the table. Because they are trading on their Orthodox Jewish cachet, it seems appropriate -- if a bit awkward -- for Peter Beinart and others to second-guess and to reject this use of our community's hard-fought brand to buttress objectionable decisions.

Last year's big insider joke was about the difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump: Trump has Jewish grandchildren. 

This week, two days in a row, the President used a press conference to dismiss concerns about increased anti-Semitism, emphasizing that his daughter is Jewish, and he has Jewish grandchildren. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister of Israel -- the Jewish State -- explicitly endorsed this excuse for not addressing threats against American Jews -- Bibi knows Jared's family. 

Bibi imposes Putin-leaning NGO restrictions

In Israel today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's carefully constructed Knesset majority passed a new law restricting NGOs that receive more than half their funding from foreign governments. Effectively, it establishes a second class for those NGOs, nearly all of which are devoted to expanding civil society and to connecting Israelis with likeminded democracy activists in Western Europe and the United States. That's right, U.S. Government-supported organizations are also included.

Not included? Dozens of right-wing, pro-settlement groups which receive funding from non-governmental foreign sources. In most cases, this unofficial funding is difficult to trace. And in many cases, those donating to the 'acceptable' NGOs are also major donors to political campaigns in the United States...invariably, Republican ones. And guess what? Netanyahu's Likud also receives significant support from those same individuals and enjoys close ties and coordination with the U.S. Republican Party; as Ambassador to the United States, Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer has even spoken at the annual Republican strategy retreat convened by Sheldon Adelson. And Adelson is the most prominent of these donors, putting him in position to pull the strings of major politicians in both countries. And yet, no need for disclosure or special status, or Knesset speeches denouncing the right-wing groups as traitors.

For Silver, betraying Jewish education is old hat

Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the New York State Assembly, may yet be found innocent of the charges against him in a new federal indictment. But the dirty secret within the Jewish community, is that he's been guilty of other offenses: Allowing milions in campaign contributions from teacher union override his allegiance to the Jewish community.

The most recent twist in this long-running farce: Crowning a public career understandably devoid of even a yarmulke, the privately Orthodox Silver -- who blocked tax incentives and other offsets that would ease the tuition crisis in New York State, home to the largest private day school population in the world -- dressed today like a yeshiva rebbe for his "perp walk".

In all our dealings with the Speaker, he never once offered serious relief of the kind that's worked in other states, without breaching constitutional protections or incentivizing tuition hikes -- excuses he consistently used to avoid serious legislative remedies.

To be fair, we were able to work out agreements with the Speaker to expand or update existing programs, netting tens of millions for non-public schools, including the yeshiva/day school community. And also, to be fair, major Jewish groups hailed the Speaker's "leadership" and good will, both publicly and in private ring-kissing sessions, to preserve and advance their claims of access and influence, and to maintain credibility as if they were accomplishing great things for Jewish education. With tuition totalling something over $1 billion a year for New York's Jewish community, a few million at a time is barely a dent.

I figured, politics is politics, and never bore a grudge against the Speaker. Even with the conflicts of interest implicit in his outside earnings, Albany is no clean room for good government and Governor Cuomo's own fighting words against corruption have faded into farce.

 

But seeing the Speaker suddenly don his yeshiva-style fedora for the most public appearance of his life -- in a moment of disgrace, pointedly identifying with the very community he had blocked -- is what pushed me to speak my mind.

The Catholic community hasn't waited patiently for the Speaker to throw them crumbs, which is the reason Governor Cuomo -- just yesterday -- committed to pushing a modest but promising initiative to increase the tax benefits for donations to non-public school scholarship funds.

 

I don't expect any Jewish community groups with a stake in "business as usual" to speak out against anything the Speaker has done, so I am voicing my own humble protest against his duplicity and our own community's complicity. I also confess my own playing ball (but never backing down) when I thought it could advance the cause.

Adding intellectual insult to physical carnage

There are no new debates and no new lessons to be learned from yesterday's wrenching, horrific, disgusting and barbaric attack in Jerusalem. I stopped being surprised a long time ago. The problems and the solutions are neither easy nor mysterious, and suggesting otherwise adds to the difficulty. May the families and the entire community find the comfort and courage to move forward in every way.

In the car yesterday morning, I listened to BBC's coverage of the synagogue attack, via our much-maligned public radio network, including an extensive chillingly vivid account by an Israeli first responder who literally jumped right into the unfolding carnage. I found his account, and the entire BBC report, to be deeply meaningful and illuminating, and couldn't have imagined a more appropriate or objectively sympathetic frame for the immediate aftermath of such an unthinkable tragedy. 

Right or left, the wasted time and effort pillorying the news media (and trumpeting every graveyard-shift breaking-news error) for supposedly biased coverage is a distraction from the real tragedy and from the real dilemmas facing Israel and the region, and the Jewish people. "All hands on deck" is a call for discipline, ingenuity and clarity of purpose, not recitations of talking points and easy answers, running around in circles, or blaming each other as our ship nears the reef.

The persistent effort to discredit open discussion and dissent within the Jewish community is beyond wasteful -- it's destructive to the very mission and purpose of the sacred enterprise. It advances the very goal of such awful but strategically irrelevant attacks, which -- beyond provoking the sort of retaliation which further alienates Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel proper -- is to break the Jewish spirit and open discourse. Those who respond to external attacks by attacking other Jews are no less "self-hating" than those whose Judaism they impugn.

As I mentioned above, this is all a play that's been repeated too many times, and despite a few heroic attempts we have yet to see either progress or a dramatic shift from the same thinking. 

How political can Hillel be and still fulfill its mission?

Hillel’s warning that its Swarthmore College chapter must enforce a pro-Israel standard for speakers and events threatens to undermine its 90-year-old mission of cultivating Jewish life on campus.

Last year's Pew study on American Jews was just the latest snooze alarm on what has been obvious for decades. To highlight one perennial finding, we have failed to translate program spending into a sustainable sense of community among those Jews who would now be old enough to be full participants. Too many young adult Jews feel either negative or indifferent about their Jewish heritage and the community which seeks to represent and minister to them.

Hillel has long been the established vehicle for nurturing Jewish souls on campus, and - despite various newcomers, and a vibrant Chabad presence - so it remains. But the strength Hillel derives from its conformity with the priorities of the mainstream American Jewish community is also in danger of limiting and even undermining its core mission.
Israel advocacy is a proven tool to boost Jewish identity, Hillel's Israel on Campus Coalition has been competing and collaborating with AIPAC on campus. But in decades past, we alienated those who were critical or concerned about Israel's actions, and by alienating them from Hillel we probably undermined their Jewish affinity overall. A larger group of Jewish students was just oblivious to the whole pro-Israel tempest, and these unaffiliated Jews might have been reached by shifting funds back to traditional Jewish content and programming.

Between Israel advocacy and birthright-style "non-political" programs, the campus community has seen a substantive and symbolic emphasis on Israel as the premise and fulcrum for Jewish identity.

Out in Philadephia's liberal Main Line suburbs, where Swarthmore holds court, establishing a Hillel presence has been a long-running challenge, and not just because of dissonance over Israeli politics and policies. Israel has been as much a hindrance as a silver bullet for broader Jewish participation, and this is likely the case in other progressive enclaves across America. Are these really the young Jews we're prepared to alienate or miss entirely?

Scaremongering for dollars? 'Tis the season...

Just to remind me the end of the tax year is nigh, my Facebook feed just produced a new report titled, "Europe Turns Blind Eye to Anti-Semitism". The content doesn't even back up that outrageous claim.

In the waning weeks of summer, before the Jewish High Holidays, numerous Jewish organizations send out "the sky is falling" alerts, with a donation card so we can avert yet another second Holocaust.

Now, we're just days away from the end of 2013, so this is our last chance to save the Jewish people and the State of Israel from imminent destruction and claim a juicy tax deduction. 

A win-win? No.

In this particular case, there may be no fundraising tie-in, just a byproduct of the general climate of sensationalism left behind.

These appeals and alerts not only trivialize and undermine the very real challenges and real successes of real people, including Jews. They not only eliminate all sense of proportion by crying wolf on cue. They insult our intelligence at best, and help turn otherwise well-meaning Jews into human echo chambers of fear and resentment at worst. 

Non-profits that need to resort to such outrageous and reckless messaging, just to fulfill their budget benchmarks, should consider whether their actual mission is worthy to begin with. 

ASA vote dooms a generation of Jewish students

The latest decision by the American Studies Association to "boycott" Israel and its institutions unleashes much negative energy, and my personal experience leads me to regret its long-term impact on a generation of students.

Many of my pro-Israel friends regularly bemoan the amount of attention the mainstream media devotes to Israel's foibles, and to sympathetic portrayals of Israel's adversaries and detractors. This complaint has some basis in fact, though it's also true that Israelis and American Jews invite coverage, and that much of the coverage is positive. As well, many of the problem stories originate in Israel's own mainstream media.

Meanwhile, many thousands of Jewish students have been deployed as "shock troops" against a "sophisticated campaign to discredit Israel on the college campus." That was in the 1980s, and one of many slogans drilled into my head at the time. I took my mission seriously, and devoted untold hours -- often working through the night -- to assure that the evil anti-Israel students were held off at the ramparts. 

No doubt, thousands of impressionable minds were spared as a result of my brave sacrifice. 

After the Cold War ended and while Oslo still held promise, I asked one big-name Hillel colleague how the less contentious atmosphere was affecting turnout to his programs. He told me numbers were up, and for the first time in years most students were coming in just because they wanted to be Jewish, and they were learning about... being Jewish.

Fast-forward to today, when another defiant Prime Minister of Israel is making waves, dovetailing with the legacy of another arrogant U.S. former President, and the Jewish (sorry, "pro-Israel") community is again issuing general calls for mobilizing brigades of students for early warning and propaganda response.

With various studies like the recent Pew report reporting the obvious decline in American Jewish affinity, giving Jewish college students a compelling sense of duty is a good way to keep them engaged (and, maybe, to get engaged to fellow Jews). But it's a little like the mismatched couple who stay together "for our children's sake". 

Only later, I realized how many educational and social opportunities I missed, in order to be a tuition-paying activist for Israel, along with a few other nice Jewish causes. Only later, I realized I might have learned something from all those disagreeable anti-Israel speeches, had I listened to their substance rather than red-flagging them for the Q&A and long reports back to HQ.

Yes, the American Studies Association has disgraced itself, and so many American studies scholars who have better things to do than wasting their time on ideological conferences and sloganeering. And yes, some Israeli academics will be unjustly inconvenienced and be denied proper recognition.

What I will lose sleep over is how this decision will generate ever more momentum for young Jews to forgo the campus experience, to shut their perceptive faculties, as they hunker down for full-fledged pitched battles in lecture halls, campus media, and student senates. Along the way, they may strengthen their identity as defensive, combative and doubt-free supporters of Israel. They will be encouraged and funded by our major organizations and lauded back home in their parents' congregations. 

Many will outgrow that phase, and many will not. Still more will only watch all this from the sidelines, later recalling Judaism as a pro-Israel answer to a potent but marginal group of academics. And then, 25 years from now, the Pew Center will call them up and ask whether they feel attached to the Jewish people. Spoiler alert...

Can Jewish leaders take 'yes' for an answer?

It's happening again... The Obama administration is inviting American Jewish leaders into the White House for substantive, high-level consultations on matters integral to U.S. and Israeli national interest, and (some of) these American Jewish leaders are publicly trash-talking the Administration within the same news cycle. 

During President Obama's first term, this happened a few times, when organizational leaders leveled complaints and demands to the President's face and to reporters. Last year, Jewish leaders were so critical of the President's nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, they gave journalists 'anonymous' negative quotes during the President's own Hanukkah party -- and trust me, that's no easy invite to snag.

This week, the President's National Security and other senior advisers met with Jewish leaders to discuss the Administration's approach to nuclear negotiations with Iran. Even as the White House guests described the meeting as "constructive", one of those same leaders was blasting Secretary of State John Kerry for publicly refusing to "succumb to fear tactics" by critics of the U.S.-Iran talks.

If the Secretary of State states something on Monday, and you're meeting the National Security Adviser on Tuesday, why not use that meeting to raise your concerns? Especially if your bone with the Secretary is that -- if he had any implied criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (the perennial Cassandra on Iran) -- he "should have made them privately." 

Substantively, there seems to be no alternative to talks with Iran, since a military solution is at best costly, and unlikely to achieve a decisive outcome. It's Obama, and not Bush or Netanyahu, who succeeded in instituting "crippling" multilateral sanctions against Iran, all for the purpose of securing a realistic halt to Iran's weapons-oriented nuclear projects. If Netanyahu and Obama (and Kerry) have a difference of opinion, do they really need an American Jewish arbitrator?

In this case, the particular Jewish leader's concern was that friends don't need to air their disagreements in public. By this measure, various Jewish leaders don't appear to be "friends" of the President or his administration, or his Secretary of State. But as loyal Americans and Israel advocates, they might consider which is the best path to securing our shared future, one based on trust and humility, not grandstanding and paranoia.

What I saw, and didn't, at the #SocialGoodSummit

I was lucky enough to get to this year's Social Good Summit, sponsored by -- and also featuring -- some of the world's leading change agents. Overall, this was an incredible opportunity to hear and cross-tweet vision, goals and implementation strategies for moving our planet to where it needs to be. One cannot help but walk away feeling inspired and hopeful that there are thousands of social entrepreneurs creatively seizing opportunities and addressing problems in ways that can be shared and applied by others -- if we can do a better job of connecting. 

Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg, Fast Company Editor
Robert Safian, and Hope North founder Okello Sam

Malala Yousefzai, Al Gore, Melinda Gates, Richard Branson, Anthony Lake, David Miliband and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt were among the well-known VIPs, but every speaker was on the mark and worthy of a million Facebook "likes". On the sidelines, I was also able to engage around a table with a top corporate leader and his partner on the ground, who are using mobile technology to bring stability and education to victims of a generation of conflict in Uganda. The lessons were numerous, and the incredible wealth of knowledge and spirit will take weeks to fully absorb.

My caveats lay in a few areas, mostly not the fault of the organizers. I list them here and now in the hope they might benefit next year's planning.

Does Israel get to define "anti-Semitism"?

A true Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism should not be sponsored by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which understandably has its own agenda -- and limitations -- regarding the fight against anti-Semitism. The Israeli Government's priority has to be promoting and defending the State of Israel, which explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu's video greeting stressed anti-Semitism as the motivation for criticism of Israel, including the common claim that Israel isn't pursuing peace; he barely mentioned anti-Semitism as a phenomenon targeting Diaspora Jews.

With Senator (then-Rep.) Ben Cardin
at OSCE's 2004 Berlin Conference

A true Global Forum should be sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and Simon Wiesenthal Center, with local Jewish communities and national governments, including Israel. Multilateral organizations, especially the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Organization of American States (OAS), ought to facilitate. 

Politicians should attend and deliver opening remarks, but only bonafide and relevant experts should present. This means people with credentials in research and polling, media, law enforcement, education, and human rights training. The role of community leaders and lobbyists should be to get people in the room, respond to the presentations with real-life concerns, and help implement the best practices which emerge from the proceedings.

When it comes to anti-Semitism, Israel hardly has all the answers, and it carries a clear conflict of interest -- its national interest. It's not a bad idea to have periodic assemblies devoted to ensuring effective hasbara ("explaining" or promoting Israel). But that's a far cry from the nuts and bolts of overcoming anti-Semitism. If Israel owns the "anti-Semitism" brand, then it will ultimately be about Israel and hasbara, not about combating anti-Semitism on the ground. And in our real world, that makes it far less appealing to the very governments we need on board. We can't fight anti-Semitism and defend the State of Israel in the same place at the same time, and expect to succeed in both, or perhaps either one.

Denis McDonough rocks!

I had the privilege of working with Denis McDonough years ago on some community and human rights issues, when he was still a top aide to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. Denis was consistently friendly, helpful, no-nonsense, professional, smart, dedicated, faithful, and accessible. And he delivered, no matter how many other files were flying across his desk (though he'd usually be on his feet).

Denis delivered because he believed in our cause, and more importantly, because his boss did. Denis made sure that key points and deliverables were included in the trade measures moving through the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Daschle also sat as a member. He also made sure that -- when the Senator was speaking before a high-profile gathering of community leaders -- he emphasized the concerns of vulnerable Jews overseas. That kind of plug from such a prominent politician made a much greater impact and boosted our cause as the communal priority it deserved to be.

Denis was always available to help, to sound out new ideas, and to keep us posted on what was coming down the pike. Since he's moved into the White House, I've only seen him speeding around a staircase landing, probably trying to cover three meetings and a hands-on President -- all AFTER "close of business". 

I really am proud, but not of Denis -- just proud of myself, that I have had an opportunity to deal with him directly, and that I live in a country where our government is being managed by people like Denis McDonough, President Obama's newly designated Chief of Staff.

Blogging about the actual "Jewish lobby"

Have I been naughty? I did not reveal any deep secrets, but my latest op-ed in the L.A. Jewish Journal connects the dots and points out what is obvious to most -- if not all -- of my colleagues in the Jewish community: "Yes, there is a Jewish lobby". My main points are outlined there, but here are a few additional thoughts...

It is Jewish because it was founded by Jews, and it's run by Jews, and there should be nothing wrong with that. For valid historical reasons, we prefer to call it "the pro-Israel lobby". It also makes for good branding, much as "women's rights" has evolved into more issue-based, mass-appeal movements like "pro-choice", "equal pay", "race for the cure", etc. And the LGBT community has the Human Rights Campaign. But while we prefer our branding be accepted universally and consistently, we cannot control the consumer.

Chuck Hagel made one reference to "the Jewish lobby", out of frustration with the pro-Israel movement's very effective and integrated fundraising/lobbying strategies. But that was not frustration with Israel, nor was it resentment of Jews per se. Once we organize and register, and walk the halls of Capitol Hill, we become fair game. We don't get special rights to anonymity just because we endured centuries of European persecution, or because we keep messaging that we're not there as "Jews" but as "pro-Israel activists". Of course we're there as Jews.

The Jewish Week posted an article this week, titled "Hagel Backed By Pro-Israel Leaders In Congress," and curiously all the "pro-Israel" leaders mentioned also happen to be prominent JEWISH leaders. And it's my guess, the reason these individuals are pro-Israel is that they strongly identify as Jews.

American Jews can take pride in supporting Israel as OUR issue, even as we invite others to join in for their own religious and personal reasons, and because we truly believe that supporting Israel is in America's best national interest. But if someone slips up and calls us "the Jewish lobby", better to remind them quietly of our long-term branding campaign and not make that the issue instead of Israel.