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.

Continuity isn't just kiruv -- it's about Jewish babies

The Jewish community is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to solve a problem, but nearly all the money is directed at only one-half of the problem.


On the basis of successive National Jewish Population Studies, and the plain reality staring most of us in the face, Jewish continuity has re-emerged as a central challenge for the Jewish people, especially in the Diaspora and particularly in the United States. As much as we want to focus on fulfilling our Divinely inspired mission in the world, we need to ensure there's enough of us to go around.

The bulk of demographic and sociological data reflects trends in assimilation, analyzing the trends and attitudes toward assimilation and intermarriage ("out-marriage" vs. "in-marriage"). Largely unmeasured is the significant decline in Jewish population resulting from reduced fertility rates, the drop-off in the number of Jews actually having babies at all. This form of attrition is less obvious, because it's much easier to notice a Jew marrying a Gentile than it is to notice babies who were never born, to parents who never married. These are facts that never existed.

CASE IN POINT

My late grandfather was the second of six children, born mostly during the decade 1900-1910, in Oil City, in rural Pennsylvania. All the children were Jewishly knowledgable, and the family was active in the synagogue for most of a century during which it evolved from European-style Orthodox to small-town Conservative. 

The eldest daughter married a Jew and had three kids, one of whom never married, one of whom married with no kids, and one of whom married and had two kids -- one grandchild died tragically, and the other is married and "childless by choice". My grandfather married and had two daughters, one of whom married without kids and one of whom -- my mother -- married and had two boys. Only I got married, and we now have -- thank God -- two amazing children. Of the remaining children born a century ago, two married with no kids, and two never married. All remained active in their Jewish communities.

So, after four generations, my great-grandparents went from six children to just two great-great-grandchildren. This is hardly an isolated case, and most people should recognize comparable stories from among their own relatives and friends. 

Koch plays Israel bluff, but too late

After first scaring the kishkes out of Jewish voters, Ed Koch now says we can relax: Instead of being a threat to Israel, President Obama is now a friend, and worthy of re-election. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but you're too late.

Plenty of American Jews were already apprehensive about Barack Obama, even some who voted for him in 2008. I have blogged previously about why the President's critics are wrong about his alleged antipathy to Israel, but this post is specifically about Koch's strategy.

Using his own New York and Israel clout, Koch called on Jews to vote against the Jewish, pro-Israel Democrat in a House race as a message to President Obama that his administration's approach to Israel was going to cost him at the polls, this year and next. Koch endorsed the Republican candidate, Bob Turner, and campaigned vigorously for him.

Whatever impact Ed Koch's endorsement -- and whatever impact of Jewish voters who cared -- Bob Turner won by an impressive margin. Koch was happy to take credit. Within days, President Obama was at the United Nations, warning against premature recognition of a Palestinian state, and Koch took credit for that, too. In response to that one speech, which actually fits the pattern of the President's prior support for Israel at the UN, Koch has announced his endorsement of President Obama -- and he'll even campaign on his behalf.

Having confirmed the suspicions of so many Jews, including many who are suspicious of any African American (or so they tell me), there is nothing Koch can do that will win back votes. His shot across the President's bow was so convincing to those ready to be convinced, that all Koch can do now is erode his own credibility by declaring the President suddenly "kosher".

For his part, Obama will play along. He can't afford to be seen rebuffing Koch's support, lest he provide fodder to his more unwavering opponents. When Obama wins re-election, with a convincing majority of the Jewish vote, Koch can take credit for that, too.

Occupy Wall Street -- You want fries with that?

The mass delivery of pizzas and restaurant fare to express support for Occupy Wall Street is especially ironic, if not perverse. Would animal-rights activists ever use a barbecue to raise money? But has anyone stopped to consider who delivers the food in Manhattan: hourly workers on rickety bikes with no benefits, often no bike helmets, no job security, and obviously no unions.

I am sympathetic to many of the stated goals of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and I have no reason to doubt their sincerity or that of the many students and union members who have joined them. However, if they truly want to liberate our society, they cannot do so on the backs of others who are being exploited right before their eyes. Real change must come to Wall Street, but it has to start with those willing to change themselves first. Otherwise, "OWS" is no more than "the feel-good hit of the season." #goodluckwiththat

Claiming credit for Obama's Israel "turnaround"

One of the more ridiculous assertions to come out of the impressive win by newly elected Republican Congressman Bob Turner is that Turner's victory influenced the pro-Israel speech President Obama delivered this week at the United Nations.

As I've blogged before, and should be widely known, President Obama has consistently been very pro-Israel in his actual policies and in every speech he's delivered before the United Nations and the U.S. Congress. The fact that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has felt the need to complain about President Obama -- both publicly and indirectly, whether with or without justification -- does not mean Obama hasn't been following the pro-Israel checklist. And even his pro-Likud checklist is more than half-filled, though that has not stopped U.S. Republicans from accusing the Democratic President of "throwing Israel under the bus."

It is true, Democrat and former New York Mayor Ed Koch threw down the gauntlet, declaring the Ninth District Congressional race to be a referendum on the President's Israel policies. It's also true that some percentage of Orthodox Jewish voters turned out for Turner on that specific issue. But the margin of victory was wide enough that Israel was not the single decisive factor, and there is ZERO evidence that President Obama changed his UN message in any way -- Turner victory or no Turner victory.

And besides, the Democrats have never been shown to be that strategic.

My 9/11

A beautiful Tuesday morning, so I took my time walking to the office, in the old B'nai B'rith Building on Rhode Island Avenue, barely a ten-minute walk from the White House. As I approached the entrance, a mid-level colleague was rushing out of the building, talking like the world was ending. Planes had hit the World Trade Center, and other wild tales, and she was fleeing back to the Maryland suburbs.

I went upstairs to my office, got online and turned on the TV. Wow. When I saw that TWO planes had crashed into the World Trade Center, I instinctively listened for the sound of fighter jets over Washington, DC, since clearly the nation's capital would be a target. But nothing outside.

I called a few of our partners in Russia and Ukraine, to make sure those Jewish communities were not affected, and to let them know we were still available to them.

After some minutes, the wife of another colleague called looking for him, and she wanted to know why I was still even in the building. She said Jewish buildings were obvious targets. I replied, "I wouldn't worry. The Jewish buildings are the soft targets. They got the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon, they may be after the Capitol and the State Department for all I know. And NOW you think they're going to hit the B'nai B'rith Building..?"

Crown Heights - too early to celebrate

When I hear the word "pogrom", I think of a populist and systematic attack on Jews and their property, instigated by political interests and enabled by official negligence and neglect, appealing to the basest emotions of greed and anti-Semitism, with the stated goal of killing Jews. 

Twenty years ago this month, a mini-riot following a fatal car accident led to such a pogrom in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The simmering racial tensions were hardly one-sided, but it's the Jews who were systematically attacked, and it was a young Jewish scholar -- Yankel Rosenbaum -- who died after a brutal gang attack. It was the authorities who took their time and tried to understand the anger of the perpetrators rather than protect the innocent. It was mainstream Jewish organizations that did not do enough, quickly enough. 

POTUS loves New York

President Obama takes a strong interest in what happens in New York politics. He called on Anthony Weiner to resign without calling on him to resign. He merely said what he would do in the same situation...

In his first months in the White House, the President leaned on several New York Democrats to not run against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been appointed by then-Governor David Paterson (himself a non-elected Governor) to succeed Hillary Clinton, whom the President had selected to be the U.S. Secretary of State. He also declined to endorse the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City, presumably out of loyalty to his political and policy alliance with the incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In this second case, by not even issuing a pro forma endorsement of the Democrat, the President was effectively getting involved in local politics and undermining his party's candidate.

Obviously, New York politics is seen as an important place to be seen. Former President Bill Clinton has based his operation in New York City, and Secretary Clinton is now a veteran New Yorker. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani continues to be a national player in Republican circles, and Governor Andrew Cuomo has followed his father Mario as a national contender. 

Aside from its symbolism as the birthplace of patriotic resolve for former President George W. Bush and Rudy Giuliani, New York houses the bulk of corporate and media headquarters, and is central to political fundraising. Even Sarah Palin launched her national bus tour here. Ultimately, nominations and policies in New York (both the city and the state) are out of the hands of most ordinary voters. If party leaders are going to be making their own decisions anyway, maybe having the President of the United States take an interest isn't entirely bad.