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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 10/04/2002 7:44:37 AM PDT by mercy
FOR EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY ...
BEHIND THE HEADLINES As Christian right prepares rally for Israel, some Jews are uneasy By Sharon Samber
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (JTA) -- Thousands of people will gather in Washington next week in support of Israel, but there won't be many Jews there.
The participants in the Oct. 11 rally are evangelical Christians, gathering in the nation's capital as part of a Christian Coalition of America conference.
According to the coalition, the Christian Support for Israel rally will "tell the world that Christians stand firmly behind the Jewish state and are unalterably opposed to trading land for a paper peace."
Such strong talk is not surprising from a group that, along with other evangelicals, has come out strongly in support of Israel despite growing international condemnation of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and a worldwide spike in anti-Semitism.
The relationship between evangelicals and Jews for years has been an uneasy one, but it appears to be solidifying as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues and Israel finds itself increasingly isolated.
Nevertheless, many American Jews and Jewish organizations remain wary of the evangelicals, suspecting their motives and disagreeing with them on domestic policy.
Even many of the groups who accept evangelical support for Israel don't see the relationship broadening.
"There is no alliance," said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "The relationship is based on this one, specific issue."
The ADL took some heat in May when it ran an ad reprinting an open letter from Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition, calling for support of Israel.
Rutgers University sociology professor Arlene Stein dismisses the idea that the evangelical community is a natural ally. The alliance with Christian conservatives could alienate large sectors of the Jewish community, she warns.
Foxman counters that the Jewish community ought to appreciate the evangelicals' support.
The American Jewish community also can see how enthusiastically Israel is accepting evangelical support.
In a recent speech to an international group of Christian pilgrims in Israel for Sukkot, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the evangelicals "friends" and asked for their help.
"I have a message I'd like you to carry home: Send more of yours to come visit Israel," he said.
Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert will speak at the Washington rally, which is expected to attract thousands of people. Also expected to attend are former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset member Benny Elon and representatives from Israel's Tourism and Foreign Affairs ministries.
For years, Israel has welcomed evangelical support. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin once said Israel would welcome evangelical help but "agree to disagree" with them theologically.
"Jews should have enough self-confidence in their own identity not to fear or be intimidated by Christian groups that are supportive of Israel," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
While the Christian Coalition is not as powerful as it once was, it still wields some clout in U.S. politics.
In August, when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld doubted the wisdom of giving the Palestinian Authority more territory and accused it of promoting terrorism, the president of the Christian Coalition of America, Roberta Combs, praised him.
"There's been too much talk of a Palestinian state," Combs said. "This only encourages the terrorists to keep murdering innocent civilians in hopes of forcing Israel to reach a settlement which would imperil its survival."
The group also has a petition denouncing Palestinian suicide bombings as genocide and crimes against humanity. The petition gives support "clearly and unequivocally" to the Israeli government's military moves against terrorism, which have sparked international criticism.
Some Jewish community relations councils have been working with evangelical groups on the local level for years, primarily on interfaith efforts.
The Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington sent a notice to the Washington Jewish community about the Oct. 11 rally, but did not sponsor the event. The Christian Coalition wants to hold similar rallies in major cities around the country.
Even those who have been working to foster better relations between Jews and evangelicals, like Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, are not anticipating major long-term changes.
But Eckstein, the founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, says Jewish attitudes toward evangelicals have changed more in the last few months -- because of Christian support for Israel -- than in the 25 years he has been working on interfaith efforts.
"The Jewish community is starting to get it," Eckstein told JTA from Holland, where he was traveling to build Christian support for Israel. "Our friends are these Christians."
The fellowship's Stand for Israel campaign, an effort to mobilize leadership and grass-roots support in the churches, is organizing a nationwide "Day of Prayer and Solidarity" with Israel on Oct. 20.
Jewish groups are more willing to invite evangelicals to speak at Jewish events and Jews are starting to acknowledge the Christian support. But a wholesale change in attitudes remains unlikely, Eckstein said.
"The barriers of resistance and suspicion are falling down," he said, "but we're not there yet."
Some suspect that the Christian right's real motivation for supporting Israel is its desire to convert Jews. Eckstein called the argument "hogwash."
There have indeed been some high-profile instances of evangelical proselytizing. Many, however, are inspired by biblical promises of blessing for those who help the Jews, remorse for centuries of Christian anti-Semitism and prophecies that the Jews' return to Israel is a precursor to messianic times.
In any case, Eckstein said, the reasons for the group's support become moot when Israel's survival is at stake.
Other points of discomfort are evangelical figures who in the past have rankled the Jewish community but who now are considered important voices in helping Israel.
Reed works with Eckstein and the Stand for Israel campaign. Gary Bauer, a leading conservative voice and former president of the Family Research Council, is working with both Eckstein and the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, a project of Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
Such developments have one Jewish group up in arms.
The Jewish Women Watching advocacy group started a provocative campaign with a mailing containing a condom, warning Jews not to adopt the Christian right's conservative domestic agenda. The ad asked why the Jewish community is "in bed" with figures on the Christian right such as the Revs. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Reed.
The group says the Jewish community is forming dangerous ties in exchange for support of Israel. The Christian right is aware that its support for Israel may cause more Jewish voters to support a conservative political agenda, Jewish Women Watching says.
But Foxman maintains the American Jewish community has not "rolled over" on social issues and is not being asked for any trade-offs for the evangelical support.
Others like Lapin, president of the conservative group Toward Tradition, believe that the Jewish community is rethinking its traditional rejection of conservatism and re-examining who its friends really are.
It remains to be seen whether the relationship will deepen, Lapin said. The Christian community's support is genuine and the Jewish community ought to show its gratitude by voting along more conservative Republican lines, he said.
"I hope and pray we can rise to the occasion," he said. "It's time for building friendships."
Michael Brown, national church liaison for the Christian Coalition, said the group is not seeking any political quid pro quo. Support for Israel is separate from other issues, and the evangelical community does not have ulterior motives for speaking out, he said.
"Israel is under attack," he said. "If not now, when?" ld
Please take some time and reflect on what is really going on around you. The Left has been in control of this culture for at least thirty years now and what has it gotten us ... and you?
The highest level of incarcerated individuals of any nation on earth.
Skyrocketing illegitimate birth rates.
Kids on drugs.
And on and on and on AND vastly eroding support of Israel and the massive return of open anti-semitism world wide.
This is the Left you love so well. Why?
If there is no America there will shortly be no Israel and probably a smoking nuclear wasteland where once was the Middle East.
Please stop self destructing and taking America down with you.
Best Regards, Your rejected and unrecognised adopted brother.
The condom is, perhaps, meant as a metaphor, suggesting that Jews who get "in bed" with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed should be careful to protect themselves.
But it's unconsciously revealing. What it says, I'm afraid, is that the bottom line for many liberal Jews is not Israel, or even their own Jewish heritage and the survival of the Jewish people, but family planning and abortion.
Many Jews voted for the clintons because the abortion right is more important to them than the survival of Israel.
It's ironic, because the abortion right has been a prescription of slow suicide for those who embrace it--most Europeans, Japanese, Mainline American Protestants, assimilating Catholics, and (with the exception of groups who are strongly observant) the Jews.
God's initial Covenant with Abraham awarded him with the blessing of children. To refuse that blessing is to reject the future.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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That should read "centuries of ROMAN CATHOLIC anti-Semitism".
Evangelical Christians have been on the Jews side since day one.
Christians don't support Israel and the Jewish people to convince them, they support them because they are God's chosen people and He appreciates it - He says so.
Far too many Jews believe that MArx brought the law, not Moses.
Foxman is one of the shrillest of the gun-banners. He is a staunch opponent of self-defense and continues to demand the confiscation of all privately-owned firearms. Of course he is against this rally. He is (in this Jew's opinion) a disgrace to Judaism, as are so many other Liberals.
On the ADL:
These liberal Jews are "Jews" in name only. Secular "Jews-lite", following an ersatz, comic-book, bargain-basement Judaism. Picking and choosing a few tasty cultural morsels to abide by, they reject the true precepts of Judaism, as inconvenient, as "old-fashioned" as, "feh! too Jewish!".
They reject their heritage as an outdated, archaic. They seek a new, shiny, fashionable Judaism. And they call it Liberalism.
As a conservative, Orthodox Jew, these liberal so-called Jews sicken me. By rejecting the true teachings of Judaism, they promote distrust of them by non-Jews. They have raised liberalism, and it's corrollary disdain for religion and religious Americans to a new orthodoxy. This bigotry and prejudice is evident and obvious to everyone but them. In so doing they bring upon themselve the very opprobrium and hate they seek to mitigate. They are worse than fools. They are blind fanatics lurching towards an ultimate cultural confrontation, which no one will win.
See: http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b5f48a329dc.htm#50
On American Jews and Politics:
Now, I’m Jewish, and quite conservative. Never-the-less, I've observed that the problem with 90% of Jews in America, is simple political stupidity. How a group so talented in sciences, academics, music, engineering, the arts and culture, could be so devastatingly stupid in politics, is a mystery for the ages. I am absolutely convinced that the blind, fanatical allegiance to liberalism by American Jews is the single greatest danger to that same group. This blindness also blinds them to the distrust, suspicion, and hostility their (American Jews) actions produce. American Jews are their own worst enemy.
A couple of great articles on this subject:
On the Political Stupidity of the Jews and
Why I Am Ashamed of My Fellow Jews
There are more related articles at:
Secular Jews vs. Authentic Judaism
and finally, this Letter to the Editor which appeared in
___________________________________
The Jewish Press | Week of March 10, 2000
Letters To The Editor
Jewish Voters, 'Uninformed, Irrational'
In a recent Media Monitor, Jason Maoz discusses "Presidential Politics and Jewish Priorities" and comes to the conclusion that the Jews' "slavish devotion" to the liberal ideology will see them voting once again for a Democratic candidate.
American Jews, despite their enormous success economically, have shown themselves too be easily frightened and politically naïve. Every ethnic group stands up for their own people; the Jews stand up for others, in the (vain) hope that when the chips are down the others will stand up for them. Only they never do, and the Jews never learn. Of all the ethnic groups in the U.S. Jews alone vote consistently against their own best interests.
Jews still idolize Franklin Roosevelt even though he did nothing to help them during the Holocaust. If as a Democrat Roosevelt fought fascism, then ergo anyone the leftists fight must be fascists – and since the Democrats fight Republicans, simplistic Jewish thinking goes, the Republicans must be fascists.
Jews put themselves out front for quotas, affirmative action and multiculturalism… all detrimental to their own people. The Democratic Party is actively pushing the Jews of Israel to commit suicide so Clinton can be considered a peacemaker and not just a perjurer and womanizer when he leaves office, but Jews want to believe that because his advisers include people named Berger, Ross, Cohen, Indyk, and Rubin, Clinton really likes them.
James Baker once allegedly cursed the Jews because "they never vote for us anyway." Republican Al D'Amato got justice for the Jews in Crown Heights and compensation from Switzerland for Holocaust victims; in appreciation New York's Jews voted for Charles Schumer, who never did anything for them but pander to Hillary Clinton, who supports a Palestinian state that would replace Israel. Schumer's first act on being elected was to embrace Al Sharpton. Why did Baker's remark raise hackles while Sharpton's anti- Semitism and Hillary's anti-Israel remarks don't?
By condemning the Republicans as a party of bigots Jews risk turning the supporters of a strong Israel against them. They have chosen without rhyme or reason a Democratic party that has corrupted the system of government the made the U.S. safe for them and their children. The Jewish vote is an uninformed, irrational vote, based on hundred-year-old fears in long gone tyrannies.
Janice Wijnen
Rego Park, N.Y.
________________________________________________
The tide is turning. There are now quite a few Jewish organizations valiantly trying to stem this tide. One of the foremost is
Toward Tradition
"Fighting secular institutions that foster anti-religious bigotry,
harm families, and ultimately jeopardize the survival of America".
Alliance for Authentic Judaism
"Promoting Authentic Jewish Values and Concepts.
Modern Issues Viewed from a Jewish Perspective".
Jewish Union
Orthodox Jewish political activism
Jews for Life
"Enunciating Judaism's anti-abortion position".
And don't forget, JPFO - Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership
"America's Most Aggressive Defender of Firearms Ownership"
And finally, if you think all Jews are liberals, you have another think coming. Check out the Jewish Task Force home page. Decidedly the most right-wing Jewish organization going today. Caution - their web-page is not politically correct!
Where specifically in the Bible does God say that Jews are exclusively "God's chosen people"?
You really need to proofread these things.
Az och und vay (that's Yiddish for "bite me")
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