Posted on 03/18/2015 3:19:16 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie
Tuesday’s electoral victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may serve to further exacerbate tensions among American Jews, according to a prominent Jewish sociologist specializing in the Diaspora’s largest community.
“Over the last few years American Jewry has been increasingly dividing over matters relating to Israel,” explained Hebrew Union College’s Dr. Steven M. Cohen, who flew in to Israel from New York earlier this week in order to cast his ballot.
“We have Israel advocates, we have pro-Israel critics, and we have BDS advocates,” he explained. “In the pro-Israel camp, both [sides] accuse the other of being unfaithful to Jewish values and ignoring physical and political dangers to Israel. The people who are pro-Israel but anti-occupation have a two front battle: one is with pro-Israel advocates who seem to support Israeli government policies no matter what and the other is with the BDS camp that seeks to delegitimate Israel. The apparent election of a prime minister who disavows Israeli readiness to accept a Palestinian state will motivate all three camps to become much more active and to become more critical of each other.”
In a pre-election analysis in The New Republic, Cohen cited the rise of J Street, which offers itself as an alternative to the long established AIPAC lobby, as symptomatic of this split.
While he believes that divisions between views over the direction the Jewish state should take will definitely further sharpen existing divides, Cohen also rebuffed the idea that Israeli political developments would estrange American Jews (who according to the Pew Research Center are increasingly liberal and suspicious of the Israeli Right’s willingness to compromise with the Palestinians) from their emotional connection to the Jewish state.
“Overall engagement with Israel is much more a function of Jewish engagement in general and of patterns of in marriage and intermarriage,” he asserted.
Asked about how she thinks the election will impact Diaspora- Israeli relations, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, the executive vice president of the Conservative Movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, replied that she believes that the American Jewish community is “committed to Israel and will work with the new government once it is established.”
“It is real and true that the bonds are unbreakable,” she said.
No matter in which direction Israeli politics goes, however, she said that many American Jews view it as critical that their Israeli co-religionists work on issues of religion and state, which she believes will eventually alienate American Jews in the long term if left unaddressed.
“Israel and the Diaspora agree that there are long term security issues that relate to pluralism and tolerance and a greater understanding of what Judaism means to the Diaspora and that is a key security issue,” she said. “One of the key questions is if the new government will move faster than previous governments to advance pluralism in light the centrality of pluralism to Israel’s security.”
However, it is impossible to know which candidates or parties will be best on this issue, she cautioned, saying that only history will decide that.
“We have to see what the whole coalition looks like to understand what will be the policies of the next government and what their priorities are. I think we aren’t there yet.”
On the other side, Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization of American, believes that the election results will not have much of an impact on American Jews.
“Most young American Jews are really not involved with Israel politics and US-Israel relations,” he explained. “It will have a minimal impact.
This is just not something that they really think about very much. Only a small percentage pay attention to what is going on in Israel.”
In fact, he asserted, he believes that American Jews have begun to repudiate the American administration’s Israel policies and that students on campuses at which he has spoken in recent weeks seemed to have been energized by Netanyahu’s recent congressional speech.
“I wonder if young American Jews are proud to have a strong articulate Jewish leader protecting Israel from the evil of a Jew-hating Iran,” he said.
Cultural or culinary Jews.
I think we all know what’s in their hearts. Every day Liberals tell us what’s in their hearts; by what they advocate . . . or what they attack.
Cohen also talks of "the rise of J Street," which is nothing more than a (nominally) Jewish arm of the Obama propaganda apparatus, funded by George Soros. It might have been appropriate to describe J Street as "rising" when it was first founded, but, thankfully, it isn't "rising" now, not with the defeat of the left in Israel despite the misguided efforts of J Street and other White House front groups.
Then he mentions that American Jews are, according to the Pew Research Center, "... increasingly liberal and suspicious of the Israeli Right's willingness [sic] to compromise with the Palestinians." Really? Well, Obama dipped around 10 points in his percentage of the Jewish vote from 2008 to 2012, so perhaps Pew(k) is wrong on this, which would not be the first time their polling results seem intuitively flawed.
You are not the first to say that, but it gets to the nub of issue quite succinctly.
J Street is scheduled to have Rep. Jan Schakowsky as their keynote speaker at a conference this weekend in DC. Other speakers are so anti-Israel and so-far left that I’m surprised there hasn’t been a revolt by the few sane members of that organization. This includes BDS leaders who are among the most anti-Israel people in the world.
Then, again, if you belong to J Street, you are very unlikely to be sane in the first place.
Post #17, yes
As you yourself put it, there are NO sane members of J Street. These are all individuals who might call themselves Jewish, yet are activists whose goal is the suicide of the Jewish people. How sick!!!
Can't think of a better choice for keynote speaker than Schakowsky, except perhaps Cohen (D-TN), who participated in their boycott of Netanyahu's speech.
Schakowsky is a documented Red. Cohen is a documented Nut.
Talmudic question> Is there a difference or does it matter at all?
As it turns out, some Jewish leaders who were deaf to J-Street’s anti-Israel lean have decided that it is going too far this time.
“But on March 9, Fingerhut announced he wouldn’t address the conference because of speakers whom he found “problematic,” reported JTA news service. Hillel’s chief administrative officer, David Eden, cited as an example Saeb Erekat, the longtime chief Palestinian negotiator who had recently compared Israel to the Islamic State, or ISIS, JTA reported. The State Department and Israel deal with Erekat.”
There is no “tension”. You are American, or a dirtbag. Same for everyone.
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