Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

From the The Jerusalem Report

HEADLINE: SHARON OR BUSH
May 6, 2002
Confused American Jews want to support Israel, but not right or wrong. They hope not to have to choose between the prime minister and the president

BYLINE: Yigal Schleifer

Standing at the intersection of 42nd Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan on a recent sunny afternoon, Barry Joseph, a 33-year-old Internet educator, wasn't sure whether to turn left or right. Joseph had come to the intersection looking for a peace rally that was scheduled to take place across from the nearby Israeli consulate. Instead, looking up Second Avenue at the consulate, he found a right-wing rally, whose tone felt too belligerent for him. Looking down Second Avenue, he found that the rally that he had come for featured a large sign calling Israel an apartheid state, which also alienated him.

Supporting the Israeli government's policies unconditionally doesn't work for him, Joseph says, but the anti-Zionism he sees at events criticizing Israel's actions also makes him uncomfortable. "What I'm trying to do right now is find out if there's room for a voice like mine," he says.

Joseph is not alone. Despite the April 15 Washington rally in support of Israel, which drew tens of thousands of Jews to the American capital, Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel concede that the vast majority of American Jews are still struggling to make their voices heard on the current crisis in the Middle East.

David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, likens the community to a "sleeping giant" that is looking for ways to express itself. "There are a lot of people out there who are worried, upset, angry," he says. "They are ready to be mobilized and they need to be directed in constructive directions."

But just how to wake the community up and what message to offer it once it awakens are the big questions facing Jewish leaders, who have been criticized, on the one hand, for not doing enough to mobilize support for Israel, and, on the other, for not coming up with a message that can attract the majority of American Jews.

"I don't know if it's an organizational problem," says one senior Israeli official in New York. "But considering the numbers of American Jews, not enough has been done."

Not so, says Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the 52-member group that was the lead sponsor of the Washington rally. "The leadership has not been silent. We have been flooding the media with statements, we've been working the administration, we've been working Congress," he insists.

The message being sent to American Jewry is clear, Hoenlein says. "There are enough people telling Israel what to do. Our job sitting here is not to negotiate. It's up to the people of Israel to do that. Our job is to see that it can do it from a position of strength and to show Israel solidarity and support at this time." As Stephen Hoffman, head of the United Jewish Communities, puts it: "Either you stand with Israel when we are under attack, or get out of the way. We're at war."

But some leaders have questioned whether giving the Israeli government such blanket support - especially when it might lead the U.S. Jewish community into conflict with a U.S. administration that wants Ariel Sharon to use more restraint - is the best policy.

"I'm disappointed with the American Jewish leadership, because I think we are still acting in the old way, which is whatever the Israeli government says goes," says one prominent Jewish leader, who is a member of the Conference of Presidents and asked not to be named. "Even if we think it's wrong, there is nobody who will say it's wrong."

There are also concerns that the Jewish community may be forced to choose sides if Sharon's policies begin to diverge widely from what Bush calls for, harkening back to a decade ago when George Bush Sr. fought with Yitzhak Shamir over the Likud government's West Bank policy. "The American Jewish establishment wants to support both the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel, as if there isn't a dispute that can turn into a mountainous dispute," says Mark Rosenblum, policy director of Americans for Peace Now. "But there is the possibility that you will have an intensification of the conflict between Bush and Sharon and then the American Jewish community will find it impossible to ignore the conflict."

The Conference of Presidents' Hoenlein says the community's relationship with the Bush administration remains strong, but also warns that "we never gave any administration a blank check."

Despite the broad organizational support for the Washington rally, there were heated discussions within the Conference of Presidents about what the message of the event should be, according to a number of participants in those discussions. Some member organizations expressed their concern about co-sponsoring an event that would give unqualified support to the Sharon government and which could also be seen as bashing the Bush administration's efforts in the Middle East. The groups gave their support only after getting assurances that the rally, headlined by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would not attack the administration and would show solidarity with the Israeli people, but not with the Israeli government.

Leaders at organizations outside of the Conference of Presidents say they too struggled with supporting the rally. "How do you express that message of support without being included in a voice that says Israel can do no wrong and is doing no wrong?" says an official with a dovish organization in New York. "On the other hand, if you don't step in, you are not giving support and you are losing your place at the table. It's agonizing."

Rabbi Ami Hirsch, head of ARZA/World Union, the Reform movement's Zionist arm, says the organized Jewish world is having a harder time framing its message this time than during previous crises that Israel has faced. "I think this is not as simple as some of Israel's wars in the past and that, no doubt, influences Israeli policy as well as American Jewry's actions." Despite strong support for Israel's right to defend itself, Hirsch adds, "the situation is clouded by the very complicated international political situation, the perception that there is not full overlap between America's interests and Israel's interests, and the sheer ferocity of Israel's military engagement. It makes it harder for us to mobilize people because some are not as convinced that this, in fact, is a war of no choice."

Without any clear answers, many Jews say they feel like they are being forced to choose sides, and being pushed to the margins if they don't. "A lot of Jews I know are very confused and are being pressured into perspectives they are not comfortable with," says Ela Thier, an artist in New York. "I won't be pitted against other Jews and I won't be pitted against Palestinians." Evan Berman, a New York computer systems manager, says the difficult decision he made not to attend the Washington rally earned him subtle hints that he wasn't a good Jew. "I feel very marginalized. It's one side or the other right now and you have to choose whether you are with the Jews or the 'Arab terrorists,'" says Berman, who spent a year on kibbutz after high school and has visited Israel several times since. "There's no nuanced position right now."

The large turnout for the Washington rally, which was organized in only a week, may be an indication that mobilizing the community is getting easier. Meanwhile, there are signs of increased activity within both the Jewish right and left.

For example, a series of boisterous rallies in New York organized by the modern Orthodox rabbi and right-wing activist Avi Weiss have been drawing large crowds, particularly one near the United Nations on April 7, which brought some 10,000. "For a long time, I have been saying that people want to become more involved," says Weiss. "We've been pushing very hard saying we have to do more. I think people are desperately yearning to express their love of Israel."

In fact, there is speculation that the Conference of Presidents' Washington rally was partially planned in response to Weiss's own plans to hold a rally there on the same day, particularly since the political message of his previous rallies was highly critical of the Bush administration's call for Israel to end its West Bank incursion. "Leadership was hesitant about holding a mass event for a number of reasons," says an Orthodox leader in New York, "but when they saw Avi Weiss pull out 10,000 people to a rally in New York, they knew they had to do something. When he announced he was doing a rally in Washington, they knew they would have egg on their face if they didn't do anything."

There are also signs of life on the Jewish left. A new peace group, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (A Covenant of Justice and Peace), is planning to kick off its activities with a late-April Washington conference. In San Francisco, 16 members of a group called Jewish Voice for Peace were arrested in a civil disobedience action at the Israeli consulate, while both Americans for Peace Now and Tikkun have run ads critical of Israeli policy in the New York Times.

But some community observers worry that despite all the new activity, most American Jews are becoming part of an anguished silent majority that is still looking for answers. "People don't want to hear about the conflict, they don't want to watch the news," says Stephen P. Cohen, a Middle East expert at the liberal Israel Policy Forum. "There are a lot of people who are descending into the 'a plague on both of your houses' category. It means that the greatest achievement of world Jewish solidarity, which is the relationship between American Jewry and Israel, is losing its meaning, because they feel terrible identification with the Israeli people, but they don't feel the Israeli people are being led in a direction that makes a lot of sense."

Peace Now's Rosenblum adds: "I think American Jewry is prepared to march with Israel and the president of the United States, provided it's pointed towards some way out. But right now, the community is just confused and voiceless."