J Street’s Spiritual Conceit
by David M. Weinberg
October 25, 2009
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The pious spiritual claptrap that characterizes J Street’s conference in Washington this week is both a conceit and a new form of Jewish apostasy. Conference speakers earnestly broadcast their “profound” Jewish and “spiritual” identities in order to besmirch the mainstream Jewish community and engender a distancing in US-Israel relations. This certainly does not fool the American Muslim leaders who are speaking at the conference. They know and appreciate exactly what J Street is up to.
It was the Buddhist seders that tipped me off to the real conceit behind J Street. The sensitive “progressive” types behind the new Washington lobby are deeply concerned, it seems, for the morality and soul of Israel.
Gee, thanks.
A love for Buddhist seders, a penchant for avant garde poetry (including a ballad entitled The Queer Intifada), and an abiding concern for Israel’s spiritual quintessence – all while being intermarried down to nearly the last Jewish soul among them – is how The New York Times recently characterized the founders and key staff members of J Street. They seek, you see, justice and holiness and Jewish meaning in the world. Especially in the Arab-Israel conflict.
This explains the preponderance of numerous, vaporous spiritual types at this week’s big J Street hug-in in Washington. Rabbi Sharon, Rabbi Amy, Rabbi Tirzah, Rabbi Jennie, Rabbi Julie, Rabbi Toba and Rabbi Melissa are among the prominent speakers. They are “diversity facilitators,” “spirituality counselors,” and “interreligious leaders” at places called Neve Kodesh, Brit Tzedek, Dorshei Tzedek and Just Vision.
So much “Tzedek” (Justice)! So much “Kodesh” (Holiness)! So much overflowing of honey, holiness and justice! At a political lobby conference, no less. Perhaps the organization should be renamed Spiritual Street.
You know that all this righteousness just needs to be exported – through tough love, if necessary – to Israel. To repair the Middle East. To spiritually save Israel in spite of itself. Or at least to salve the sacred American Jewish soul.
Well, enough, I say, of this misty, sentimental and self-serving gobbledygook. All this soft spiritual urgency, supposedly on “behalf of” Israel, belies a triple conceit; or should we say, a great deceit.
Firstly, J Street is peddling the nutty notion that spirituality has anything to do with Mideast peace. The latent chutzpa is the insinuation that authentic identification with the Jewish prophets and morality dovetails with the dovish side of the political map. If only American Jews and Israelis were more religiously dovish and in touch with the forgiving and compassionate side of their Jewish souls – we would do the “left” thing and concede more generously to the Palestinians. Then, lo and behold, peace would come to the Mideast.
The second conceit is that such J Street-peddled nonsense – along with J Street support for talks with Hamas, opposition to military action against the Hamas, and opposition to sanctions or military action against nuclear Iran – represents the majority of American Jewry. Hogwash. Patently false.
The third conceit is that, if only Israel were to change – and it is J Street’s job to get America to force Israel to change – then peace would come to the Mideast. As if Israel was the party unwilling to compromise. As if Israel hasn’t already offered the Palestinians at Oslo and Camp David and Taba and Annapolis just about everything they want of post-67 Israel. As if the Palestinians have compromised on their demands one wit since the great handshake on the White House lawn. But it is Israel that needs to be pressured, say the J Street moral oracles.
J Street is a new form of Jewish apostasy. Its adherents hasten to embrace their Jewishness (even if they don’t really know much about authentic Jewish tradition and morality) in order to besmirch Israel and the mainstream Jewish community. They earnestly declare how “profoundly” Jewish they are, in order to engender a distancing in US-Israel relations.
I guess that’s why J Street has spent most of its resources bashing long-standing supporters of Israel – calling them extremists and right-wingers and accusing them of a “silencing” – and listing things that Israel must be made to do. All this, instead of calling out the dangers of Iranian nuclear weapons or Palestinian genocidal anti-Semitism. That’s why they fret over the Jewish soul instead of working to save and protect the physical Jewish State of Israel.
The only people clearly not fooled by all this spiritual mumbo-jumbo are Salam al-Mayarati, Ziad Asali, Trita Parsi and other leaders of the American Muslim Public Affairs Council, American Task Force on Palestine and the National Iranian American Council – all of whom are speaking – surprise, surprise – at the J Street Jewish soul jamboree this week. They undoubtedly see past the pious claptrap, and know – and appreciate – exactly what J Street is up to.
The writer is director of public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He blogs at www.davidmweinberg.com.
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J Street Expands the Pro-Israel Tent
Dov Waxman
BESA Center Perspectives Papers No. 96, November 11, 2009
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/perspectives96.html
Weinberg lampoons J Street’s conference as a “hug-in” and a “soul-jamboree,” and dismisses J Street’s message as “spiritual mumbo-jumbo.” But if he had attended the conference, or watched some of the video clips of interviews with attendees posted online, he would know that it was not some throw-back to a 1960s hippie gathering, but the beginning of a twenty-first century movement of Jews who care passionately about Israel, want to do all they can to ensure its survival as a Jewish and democratic state, and believe that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the key to this. That, in a nutshell, is J Street’s position. This is not a matter of spirituality, but realism. Without the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel will soon find itself in the untenable position of ruling over more Palestinians than Jews. This would surely spell the end of the Jewish state, unless of course it ceases to be a democratic Jewish state.
The more than 1,500 people who came from all over the United States and elsewhere (including Israel) to J Street’s conference did not come to hold hands and sing cum-ba-yah. They came to hear about the prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the state of US-Israeli relations, and the challenge posed by Iran, among many other subjects. They also came to discuss the meaning of being “pro-Israel” and how they can advance J Street’s “pro-peace, pro-Israel” message.
To claim that J Street’s supporters want to “besmirch Israel and the mainstream Jewish community” and “engender a distancing in US-Israel relations,” is not only deeply misleading, but also seriously misguided. Suggesting that J Street and its supporters, contrary to their own protestations, are in fact anti-Israel is to do exactly the kind of thing that J Street argues is all too common in discussions about Israel – narrowing the definition of what counts as “pro-Israel” to one’s own views. Anyone who occasionally criticizes the Israeli government, supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, and wants the US to actively help bring this about, is labeled anti-Israel and cast outside the boundaries of the mainstream Jewish community. Ironically, Weinberg’s attack against J Street’s “apostasy” is clear evidence of the problem J Street identifies in how the Jewish world talks about Israel. Instead of having an open and civil discourse in which there is space for disagreement and dissent, we have diatribes in which groups and individuals are attacked and defamed. The result is the “chilling” of debate over Israeli policies and actions that J Street was set up, in part, to counter.
J Street’s meteoric rise in its 18-month history from a tiny one-room operation to a major player in pro-Israel advocacy with almost 110,000 online supporters and a $3 million budget is due in no small measure to widespread frustration among many American Jews over the stifling of debate about Israel and the imposition of a narrow definition of what counts as “pro-Israel” by defenders of the status quo. For young American Jews in particular the rigid orthodoxy of opinion that characterized the pro-Israel advocacy of the organized American Jewish community was profoundly alienating. In response, many have avoided engaging with Israel and channeled their activist energies elsewhere (to fighting for social justice in the US or stopping the genocide in Darfur), others have opted-out of the organized Jewish community altogether. J Street offers this generation a much-needed venue where they are welcome to question and debate, and where they can fuse their commitment to universal values and human rights with their Jewish values and love for Israel. Whether or not you support J Street’s positions, this is a positive development which strengthens the American Jewish community and, ultimately, its bonds with Israel.
Much has been written about the fraying ties between American Jews, especially younger ones, and Israel. While there are no doubt many reasons for this “distancing,” one of them is the fact that many American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal and democratic in their political orientation, are not comfortable with uncritically supporting an Israel that appears increasingly less liberal and is in danger of becoming undemocratic as well. Not only does this weaken the bond between American Jewry and Israel, it also undermines the US-Israeli alliance in so far as American Jewry has long been an important source of support for that alliance.
Growing numbers of American Jews, young and old, are no longer willing to toe the party line on Israel. Instead of being silenced and ignored, J Street gives these people a collective voice. But it is hardly a radical voice. Contrary to the denunciations of its critics, J Street is not some radical leftist organization on the margins of American Jewish politics. Although its positions on some issues may be a little to the left of the dominant consensus within the organized Jewish community – over the Gaza war or the Goldstone report, for example – J Street represents a center-left perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian issue and US foreign policy more generally that is widely held by American Jews. It may not represent the “mainstream” of the organized Jewish community, but it can make a good claim to representing the mainstream of the broader American Jewish community. After all, J Street’s positions are generally in line with those of the Obama Administration, which continues to receive strong support from the majority of American Jews.
By enlarging the pro-Israel tent, allowing more American Jews to identify themselves as being pro-Israel without having to be uncritical knee-jerk supporters of Israeli governments, J Street has already made a vital contribution to the American Jewish community. This is good for American Jewry, and good for Israel.
