June 7, 2018

There’s a new specter haunting liberal rabbis, educators and parents. A decade ago it was J-Street — until Jewish Voices for Peace’s (JVP) anti-Israel venom made J-Street look tame. For about five minutes it was JVP until it became clear how unhinged — and marginal — that organization is. But now, what organization strikes fear in the hearts of baby boomer Jews — IfNotNow (INN)!

INN has mastered the reverse guilt trip — from kids to grown-ups. The organization’s “You Never Told Me” campaign has idealistic young people saying, “We were never told the honest truth about the Occupation.”

An angry frontal assault, JVP-style, is easiest to resist — your muscles tense and you push back. But this… These are graduates of our finest day schools and summer camps. These are insiders who spent their Memorial Day Weekend running “Camp Counselor Training on the Occupation” — for counselors preparing to lead this summer in at least “eight Reform, Conservative and liberal Zionist camps,” according to JTA.  

These ideologues are spreading Jewish guilt. They kill the conversation — and three-dimensional, truly critical thought — with apparent kindness, but often mask the harsh, one-sided political agenda they push.

The historian’s favorite text is context. INN distorts context repeatedly, starting with its name. “If not now” is the last of Hillel’s three phrases in “Ethics of the Fathers” 1:14, generating a three-dimensional vision, not a Johnny-one-note slogan. 

These ideologues are spreading Jewish guilt. They kill the conversation — and three-dimensional, truly critical thought — with apparent kindness, but often mask the harsh, one-sided political agenda they push.

Hillel starts, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” That suggests that the Zionism 101 you necessarily first encounter in school and camp must establish your fundamental identity, your core loyalties. Jews who teach Jewish identity through a Palestinian lens or start Zionist history with the Palestinian problem are as foolish and confused as Palestinians who teach Palestinian identity through Zionism (but, alas, far more prevalent — not many Palestinians are “you-never-told-me-ing” their parents).

Hillel’s sayings suggest a values hierarchy. Identity comes before altruism. And self-preservation comes first; if people threaten you, defend yourself. Once you’re safe, only then do you process others’ motives, your enemies’ troubles.

The second teaching INN neglects is also challenging. “But if I am only for myself,” Hillel asks, “who am I?” We all know America too well to accept the smugness of those who reduce Israel to “the Occupation,” without addressing America’s ills. I’m not talking President Donald Trump here. Wander around those areas you dare not visit in any major American city — as I did in Atlanta recently, visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached. Welcome to the desolation. Note the epidemic of broken buildings and broken lives. Note that the once-racially loaded term “the underclass” now includes Blacks and whites crushed by the opioid epidemic and America’s deindustrialization. Millions of Americans aren’t enjoying most INN Jews’ happy-dappy upper-middle-class bubble.

If these INNers consider not being “only for myself,” why not scrutinize neighborhoods mere miles from them, rather than caricaturing a target 6,000 miles away?

Do these students confront their parents, saying, “You never told me our wealth comes from Mommy or Daddy stripping working-class people of jobs by exporting them abroad or leveraging them out of existence”? … “You never told me about your creative tax deductions that helped finance our grand house and lavish lifestyle”? …  … “You never told me how monstrous our ecological footprint is — no matter how many newspapers we recycle”? … “You never told me our full-time nannies have to leave their kids before dawn and come back way after dusk so we can lead our cushy lives and you can enjoy your dual careers”? 

Of course, if INNers ever stop being offended by me for daring to disagree with them (although when they bash Israel they insist we need to learn to criticize one another), they’ll probably respond defensively. They’ll say: “It’s complicated” … “America’s more than the desolation” … “My family’s philanthropic, we give back to the community” … “The situation has improved, but of course there’s still work to do.”

And I’ll respond: “Gotcha!”

Of course it’s complicated. So is Israel’s position, surrounded by Palestinians seeking Israel’s extermination, who have used Israel’s land withdrawals as opportunities for more violence. Israel is much more than “the Occupation.” The rest of Israel is what they were being educated about, in age-appropriate ways. And Israel contributes to the world. But, of course, there’s still work to do, and big mistakes are occasionally made.

But here’s our Trumportunity. Liberal critics of America’s president are showing how to criticize our leaders or their policies without abandoning the nation. No country’s legitimacy hinges on it being perfect — except, apparently, Israel’s.

INN calls itself “a movement led by young Jews to end the American Jewish community’s support for the Occupation.” Oversimplification alert! Most American Jews, like most Americans, support Israel. Most Jews, including most Israelis, wish they could wish the occupation away just like Americans want to wish the desolation away. But good smart people, trying hard, have failed for decades. Maybe the problem’s more complicated. And maybe we also have to scrutinize the Palestinians, assessing their hostility to Israel’s existence.

Moreover, beware categorical statements. The sweeping, self-righteous claim that INNers didn’t receive “an honest Israel education” invites defensiveness. I know some of the accused counselors and teachers can specify moments when they addressed complexity, including discussing the Palestinian narrative — which these students didn’t absorb. Perhaps they were tired. Perhaps it wasn’t age-appropriate. Admittedly, things taught to kids are more simplistic than what they now need to hear as 20-somethings.

Nevertheless, the INNers have a point: all-too-often Israel education is simplistic. Seventeen years ago, I sat on a committee in Montreal and we developed a plan to work complexity into the Jewish day schools’ Israel narrative, grade-by-grade, gradually, sensitively. For 17 years that plan has sat on a shelf.

Israel education often is all-or-nothing. Some leftists only teach through the conflict, while some rightists only teach through a sense of crisis. Both unwittingly make our multidimensional story pivot around the Palestinians. Others teach Israel as this perfect, blue-and-white, fragile glass bowl. The first time a friend or professor challenges that narrative, the whole illusion shatters.

I don’t fear the tough questions. Israel has done much more right than wrong, and far better than most fellow democracies faced with similar enemies. I named my new book “The Zionist Ideas,” not “The Zionist Idea,” to open up the conversation. But INN must decide. Is it going to be a genuinely “honest” constructive, educational force that teaches all three dimensions of Hillel’s verse, or is it actually a politicized attempt to turn Jewish schools and summer camps into Palestinian indoctrination camps, replacing one political theology with another?

Moreover, is INN ready to deal with the moral challenges of Israel education in an age of delegitimization, when Palestinians have created the poisonous context surrounding us?

I know how hard many of us in Zionist and Israel education are working to get it right. Let’s hope these young zealots will realize they are just reinforcing the bad-faith narrative of the pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist left.

Gil Troy, a distinguished scholar of North American History at McGill University, is the author of “The Zionist Ideas: Visions for the Jewish Homeland — Then, Now, Tomorrow,” published by The Jewish Publication Society.

In 1933, with the rise of anti-Semitism in this country and the emergence of Nazi influence in this city’s film industry, the Jewish Community Committee (later, the Community Relations Committee) was formed. Dramatically portrayed by USC historian Steven Ross in his recent book, “Hitler in Los Angeles,” the JCRC has operated as an essential civic instrument in this community for more than six decades. 

What’s in a name? While the CRC remained the official acronym of this Los Angeles  entity for much of its existence, across the country, community relations entities were pressed to demonstrate their “Jewish” credentials, both in terms of policy and practice. As a result, beginning in the late 1960s, communities were adding the “J” to express their special connection to the primary policy issues of Israel, Soviet Jewry and anti-Semitism that would be increasingly important to their mission.

During the earliest years of the JCRC, according to historians Max Vorspan and Lloyd Gartner in their book on the Jews of Los Angeles, the committee not only had to deal with the presence of neo-Nazis in Southern California but also confronted communist sympathizers operating inside the Jewish community. Despite these major political challenges that confronted JCRC leaders in the 1930s and beyond, the work of this extraordinary group of leaders would be singularly acknowledged in sociologist Robert MacIver’s 1951 report on Jewish community relations in America. 

The rich history and significant contributions of the Jewish community relations enterprise ought not to be minimized. In such distinctive areas as promoting intergroup understanding, advancing interfaith relations, fighting racism and anti-Semitism, and promoting Jewish public policy interests, the JCRC played a constructive and essential role for this community.

Today, every major ethnic and religious community in Southern California has an organization representing its key interests. 

During the immediate post-World War II era, the JCRC was involved with such issues as civil liberties, immigration legislation, religion in public schools, interracial relations, discrimination in housing and fair employment practices. During this period, the Jewish Community Relations Committee was active as well with the Hollywood community in dealing with stereotyping of Jews and other minorities, employment discrimination and issues of religious tolerance.

Mobilizing support for Israel, fighting for Soviet Jewry, opposing cults and missionaries, and building connections with African-American and Latino leaders would be among the issues that defined the work of the committee during the second half of the 20th century. Along with other communities in California, the JCRC helped to create a Sacramento presence, JPAC (Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California), in order to address Jewish interests on a statewide basis.  At times the committee played a convening role in representing the Jewish community at city hall or in Washington, D.C. Indeed, its monthly meetings provided a venue for city, state and national political leaders to address the concerns of the Jewish community, while presenting JCRC leaders the opportunity to consider critical policy issues. 

The legacy of the JCRC has indeed left its imprint not only on a generation of Jewish activists but also with key leaders in government and civic groups across this city.

In the 1980s and ’90s, its groundbreaking work with Hispanic leaders, culminating in the first Latino-Jewish leadership missions to Mexico City and Jerusalem, resulted in ongoing political relationships and cultural connections between these two communities. The 1987 visit to Los Angeles of Pope John Paul II would see the JCRC working with Catholic leaders in planning the interfaith activities associated with that historic gathering. After the 1992 civil unrest, JCRC leaders helped to facilitate opportunities for healing and education by bringing together Korean and African-American leaders and in working with government, the private sector and ethnic group representatives in developing plans for rebuilding L.A.

The legacy of the JCRC has indeed left its imprint not only on a generation of Jewish activists but also with key leaders in government and civic groups across this city who were the beneficiaries of the work undertaken by lay leaders and professionals engaged in these efforts at building a stronger community.

Today, across the country, federations and their community relations agencies are caught between the pressures to speak out and act on the public policy issues that are a priority for many Jewish Americans, and the pushback of others who oppose such initiatives. Yet despite these challenges, the educational and grass-roots organizing work of the community relations field continues to thrive in many parts of this country. As national leaders in this field recently reported, “For the first time in more than two decades, federations that had previously cut their JCRCs are now re-investing. … Community relations is once again on the rise.” In this complex political environment, local communities are seeking to leverage their influence and connections with political elites and other civic, religious and ethnic leaders. At this time, this pattern of reinventing JCRC’s is taking place in such communities as Phoenix, Atlanta and Seattle.

One of the critical assets of the JCRC was its ability to identify and train new leaders.

Today, every major ethnic and religious community in Southern California has an organization representing its key interests. The L.A. Jewish community requires such a similar representation. As important and essential as are the roles performed by the American Jewish Committee, the ADL, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Bend the Arc and other civic organizations within this city, L.A. is the largest Jewish community in America without its own Jewish public policy body.

Over the past several years, groups such Jews United for Democracy and Justice have emerged to fill the vacuum of a community forum dedicated to the discussion of the significant policy issues of importance to our Jewish community. Similarly, organizations such as Reform California have been formed to provide a Jewish response to statewide issues of concern to Jews and to other constituencies.

In this current political environment where there are deep divisions within our community, a reorganized JCRC might best operate outside of the Jewish Federation, similar to the organizing model that exists today in such communities as New York and San Francisco. It should be noted that for much of its early history, this body operated outside of any umbrella structure, enabling it to address the primary concerns of the community. 

In re-inventing the JCRC, five key elements ought to drive this initiative:

The community today requires a neutral space for political discourse to occur; the JCRC can be that address. This communal entity can establish Jewish “town halls” where public policy issues can be vetted and where thoughtful, civil discourse can take place without the necessity of requiring policy statements or joint action. The community today requires a gathering point where Jews who hold differing views can come together for thoughtful conversations around issues that impact our society. JCRC’s policy and advocacy functions should be limited to those compelling issues of Jewish security, and where its constituents embrace collective action. In this context, we will be creating “communities of conversation” designed to frame the essential issues in these critical times. 

In creating this new venture, it is essential that its organizers move away from the “silo” and “competitive” institutional system that defined the institutional culture of the 20th century, adopting instead a 21st-century organizational approach that promotes a collaborative, integrative communal framework. This shared-engagement model permits a seamless interconnect or synergy among partner organizations with the JCRC, permitting its participants a gateway of organizational choices with reference to their specific political orientation and policy preferences. Where the JCRC may act on the shared interests of the L.A. community, this model permits access to specific interests of its many participants.

One of the critical assets of the JCRC was its ability to identify and train new leaders. A leadership development program for this new generation of public policy wonks and community organizers represents a central ingredient in this proposal. Reseeding our community with knowledgeable and engaged professionals and lay leaders must be seen as core to building the next iteration of the JCRC. 

As in the past, the JCRC can be the vehicle for mobilizing community volunteer opportunities, including projects such as Koreh L.A., with its focus on student literacy. Building into this organizational model a commitment to community involvement ought to be an essential part of its mandate. 

The JCRC ought to be seen as the central community public policy organizing body, bringing together the organizations and synagogues of Los Angeles, being in a position to help mobilize our community around common concerns and joint political action. 

The Time Is Now
At this moment when many Jews are in search of a venue for thoughtful deliberations and collective action, the establishment of a 21st-century version of the JCRC would seem to be in order.

Steven Windmueller is the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Service at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. Windmueller’s writing can be found on thewindreport.com. From 1985-95, Windmueller served as the director of the Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.