Too many US Jewish groups place the community, the nation, and Israel after their own political agendas.
By MARK GOLDShihab 224.88(photo credit: AP)
Many large, long-established mainstream American Jewish organizations have outlived their usefulness.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, United Jewish Communities, UJA-Federation of New York, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs commendably sponsored a "Rally to Stop Iran." But after Republican vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin accepted an invitation to speak at the event, they disinvited her. This followed Sen. Hillary Clinton cancelling her planned appearance upon learning of Palin's planned appearance.
The event organizers claimed they did not want political figures to appear at the rally - despite the fact that they touted such appearances in the past, and logically so, as high-profile personalities lend weight to the cause.
WHAT CAN we conclude from this chain of events?
1. The importance to Clinton of avoiding an appearance with Palin is greater than the need to stand together and speak out against Iran's nuclear weapons program and incitement to genocide.
2. For the Jewish organizations sponsoring the rally, placating some behind-the-scenes groups with an apparent hatred of Palin is more important than ensuring decency and fairness; the interests of the Jewish people and Israel; and opposing Iran's nuclear ambitions.
There is an element of hypocrisy here, as well. Palin's appearance was deemed "political," but Clinton's attendance would not have been?
THE UNFORTUNATE recurring theme seems to be that too many American Jewish organizations place the interests of the community, the nation, and Israel a distant second to their own political and personal agendas.
In 2003, when Israel was battling relentless, deadly Palestinian violence, one major Jewish organization that one might have relied on to lend its support was devoting its resources to filing a brief supporting the University of Michigan's affirmative action program.
The next year, the Union for Reform Judaism criticized Congress "for passing one-sided pro-Israel resolutions." The URJ leadership also opposed the US intervention in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, who was, among other things, paying the families of Palestinian terrorists who killed Israelis. Did URJ leaders oppose US action in Iraq because they were looking out for Israel's or Jews' best interest, or because it was more important for their positions to fit in with their leftist milieu?
Most recently, URJ President Rabbi Eric Yoffie declared that the movement would not cooperate with Christian Zionists. That in itself is bad enough for Israel, but the URJ and other Jewish organizations' hostility to Christian Zionists hardly encourages more support for Israel.
OTHER MAINSTREAM Jewish organizations are slow to focus on fighting Islamofascism's threat to the Western world as a whole, and to Jews in particular. They don't realize or let on that anti-Semitism today is centered in the Muslim world, with a virulence every bit as horrific as the Nazis'. They prefer to warn us about the relative non-threats of conservative Christians, sightings of neo-Nazis in Europe, or Jewish cemeteries being desecrated with swastikas.
Often, the fact that Israelis in Sderot and elsewhere have been bombarded daily from Gaza often doesn't rate as much concern as the neo-Nazi bogeyman. Is it a perceived need for atonement for their failures during the Holocaust that these organizations seem to prefer to wallow in its "lessons" and the last-war threat of neo-Nazis, rather than face today's enemies?
Recent turmoil in the financial world has claimed a number of hallowed names. Others were bailed out by American taxpayers. A number of the old-line Jewish organizations will - no doubt - also have their saviors, but it would make more sense to let the hoary, wizened ones pass from the scene and leave the battlefield to the others. Newer groups like JINSA, Stand With Us, CAMERA, and MEMRI, and a few older ones like ZOA* are better attuned to today's challenges and more effective at meeting them.
*Acronyms stand for Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America; Middle East Media Research Institute; and Zionist Organization of America, respectively.
The writer does volunteer work on behalf of US national security and Israel. He is retired from a career in the transportation industry and lives in the northeastern US.
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