J Street branch drops pro-Israel slogan

J Street's university arm has dropped the "pro-Israel" part of the left-wing US lobby's "pro-Israel, pro-peace" slogan to avoid alienating students.

That decision was part of the message conveyed to young activists who attended a special weekend program for students ahead of J Street's first annual conference, which began on Sunday.

Students are seen as a key component of the 18-month-old organization's constituency base and the conference itself. The multi-day event has incorporated new technology and interactive forums to harness their energy and garner feedback from the audience, which swelled to 1,500 on Monday and created overflow plenary and breakout sessions.

No difference, but for accuracy only the University arm dropping pro-Israel.

J Street branch drops pro-Israel slogan
HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, Jpost correspondent in WASHINGTON , THE JERUSALEM POST
Oct. 27, 2009
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256557968276&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

J Street’s university arm has dropped the “pro-Israel” part of the left-wing
US lobby’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” slogan to avoid alienating students.

That decision was part of the message conveyed to young activists who
attended a special weekend program for students ahead of J Street’s first
annual conference, which began on Sunday.

Students are seen as a key component of the 18-month-old organization’s
constituency base and the conference itself. The multi-day event has
incorporated new technology and interactive forums to harness their energy
and garner feedback from the audience, which swelled to 1,500 on Monday and
created overflow plenary and breakout sessions.

At their earlier weekend session, the 250 participating students mapped out
strategies for bringing J Street’s approach to college campuses and
encouraging students to join in the effort.

“We don’t want to isolate people because they don’t feel quite so
comfortable with ‘pro-Israel,’ so we say ‘pro-peace,’” said American
University junior Lauren Barr of the “J Street U” slogan, “but behind that
is ‘pro-Israel.’”

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan’s
terminology, explained that on campus, “people feel alienated when the
conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people
feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people
feel connected to the Middle East.”

She noted that the individual student chapters would be free to add
“pro-Israel,” “pro-Israel, pro-Palestine,” or other wording that they felt
would be effective on this issue, since “it’s up to the individuals on
campus to know their audience.”

Yonatan Shechter, a junior at Hampshire College, said the ultra-liberal
Massachusetts campus is inhospitable to terms like “Zionist” and that when
his former organization, the Union of Progressive Zionists (which has been
absorbed into J Street U), dropped that last word of its name, “people were
so relieved.”

Shechter said that J Street U allows students who support Israel to have an
address on his campus, adding that nothing more to the right exists or would
be sustainable and the only other Jewish student group “is decidedly not
political... they won’t go beyond having felafel on Independence Day.”

J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami said that when it came to his
organization’s work with the student groups, “If the way to engage the young
part of our community is to give them space to work through their
relationship with Israel, then we’re going to do that. We’re not going to
shut them out, because the only way to keep them in the community is to give
them the space to work that out.”

J Street itself has repeatedly emphasized the pro-Israel aspect of its
identity, stressing its stand in support of Israel and the need for a
two-state solution in the face of criticism that it doesn’t squarely support
the Jewish state.

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren declined an invitation to the conference
after a spokesman said some of J Street’s policies “could impair Israel’s
interests,” though several Kadima and Labor MKs have flown in to attend the
Washington convention.

Ben-Ami described himself as “concerned but realistic” about the students’
choice to leave out the pro-Israel piece of J Street’s slogan.

He added, “Some in the community might not want to hear that this is where a
lot of young people have come to, but we have to deal with people where
they’re at and address their concerns.”

The student sessions included activism training on using the media, building
campus organizations and lobbying political leaders. They also addressed
issues of concern, including “Anti-Semitism and Israel,” a session described
as focusing on the fact that “anti-Semitism does exist, even within
progressive communities we often consider our allies” and asking how open
conversations can still be promoted. Another event was titled “Reckoning
with the Radical Left on Campus: Alternatives to Boycotts and Divestment,”
and called for “developing alternative methods for change.”

One participant, though, expressed surprise when the latter session shifted
from the advertised topic of countering divestment to a discussion of how to
effectively call for divestment from products made in settlements without a
broader call for divestment from all of Israel.

The participant, who spoke anonymously because J Street only authorized J
Street U’s board members to speak to the media, said the students at the
panel were brainstorming ways to make the nuance of their position clear
from broader divestment campaigns.

J Street did not respond to a question about the session by press time, but
did note that the student workshops were closed door sessions.

Ben-Ami specifically welcomed students at the opening session on Sunday
night, at which Barr spoke, though the crowd was dominated by older
activists, many of them long advocates of an end to the Israeli occupation
of Palestinians and in favor of active American diplomacy in the region.

Later, Ben-Ami described his organization’s goal as one that includes
changing the nature of the debate about Israel in America to one of a
big-tent approach where different viewpoints and perspectives were welcomed.

“It is our goal to change traditional conversations when it comes to Israel
and to broaden the notion that there is only one way to express love and
concern for it,” Ben-Ami said to applause. “We are here to redefine and
expand the very concept of being pro-Israel. No longer should this ‘pro-’
require an ‘anti-.’”

He read letters of support from President Shimon Peres and opposition leader
Tzipi Livni, neither of whom were able to attend but both of whom expressed
support for including a wide swath of American Jews in the issues connected
to Israel.

“For too long, our voice - the voice of mainstream progressive Jews on
Israel - has been absent from the political playing field in Washington and
around the country,” Ben-Ami told the crowd, noting that many have focused
on other issues.

“When it comes to Israel, our voices and our positions have been drowned out
by those to our right with the intensity and passion of single-issue,
single-minded advocates. As we care deeply about the State of Israel and the
security of the Jewish people, so too does this passionate minority,” he
said.

He declared, though, that “we come here to Washington, DC, to make clear to
politicians and policy-makers alike that no one group speaks for Jewish
Americans as a whole.”

The goal, he said, was “to make our voices heard and our power felt from the
corridors of power in Washington, DC, to the campaign trails in all 50
states.”

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