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May 22, 2019

Dems: Debate Israel Out in the Open

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

When California Democrats gather for their state party convention in San Francisco on May 31, they will hear from congressional and legislative leaders, from Gov. Gavin Newsom and every other statewide constitutional officer, and a battalion of presidential candidates. They will hear about issues that unify and inspire their party, about abortion rights and marriage equality, about universal health care and climate change, about gun control and immigrant rights. 

But one thing they will almost certainly not hear about — not from Newsom or Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) or Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) or any of the other presidential contenders — is Israel.

These conventions are designed to bring together a party. Israel is tearing apart the Democratic Party. So if an attendee wants to hear about Middle East geopolitics or the domestic political manifestations of that debate, those discussions won’t take place on the podium but in the backrooms and hallways of the Moscone Center. That’s where delegates will be arguing over a passel of resolutions put forth by anti-Zionist hardliners, who call for unilateral Israeli concessions in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights and ignore ongoing security threats to residents of the Jewish state. Meanwhile, pro-Israel Democrats are fighting back with resolutions of their own that would properly define the relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And party leaders will do everything in their power to keep these arguments out of public view.

But suppressing this fight would be a mistake. Battling over the party’s principles behind closed doors simply provides an advantage to a smaller but well-organized anti-Zionist movement. Better to debate these issues in public, where a pro-Israel majority can be clearly heard. And even better to put the question to every elected official and candidate who attends the convention: Ask Newsom and Pelosi and Harris and the rest to take a public position on each of these resolutions and to make it clear that they stand with Israel.

“Better to debate these issues in public, where a pro-Israel majority can be clearly heard.”

The overwhelming majority of elected Democrats would take that position, a small but vocal minority would not. But the short-term discord would be a small price to pay to expose the shallowness and narrowness of the anti-Israel sentiment. Burying the disagreement, on the other hand, simply allows the ideological outliers to organize outside of public view and to come back stronger every year until they have become an even more formidable political force.

I was a Republican for most of my adult life, before switching to No Party Preference status several years ago when the GOP’s rightward march made it clear I no longer belonged in that party. Some readers of this column will therefore dismiss my counsel as a diabolical plot from a nonbeliever whose true goal is to harm rather than help the efforts of pro-Israel Democrats. 

But I once watched my former party be taken over by rebel forces, too. I watched as the party establishment tried to pretend that the voices of intolerance from the far right didn’t exist and ignored the growing populist anger until it was too late.

Former President George W. Bush and the late Sen. John McCain and their generational colleagues believed that the anti-immigrant forces in their party could be isolated and hidden and ultimately defeated. But their strategy of forcing those debates to take place in the shadows ultimately backfired, and by the time the fight became public, the extremists’ numbers had grown to the point where they could no longer be held back. 

As a result, anti-immigrant sentiment now not only dominates but defines the Republican Party. While that de-evolution may bring some happiness to dedicated partisans on the other side of the aisle, the end result should serve as a warning to principled Democrats who think that obscuring arguments about Israel will work any better.

It’s far too easy to underestimate insurgencies, especially on such a volatile political and societal landscape. Fanaticism left unexposed has now despoiled one of our two major political parties. Let’s not allow the same thing to happen to the other, especially not on an issue as important as the safety and security of the Jewish homeland. Exposing haters — on either the far right or the far left — to public scrutiny is ultimately the best way to prevail.

Dan Schnur is a professor at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and Pepperdine University. 

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Making 1 Million Missing Jews of Color Welcome

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

I live in as diverse a Jewish community as there may be in America, in Brooklyn, N.Y., but often look around synagogue sanctuaries and other gathering spaces and wonder why there aren’t more black and brown Jews present.

Yehuda Webster’s experience tells us why. One Monday morning last November, Webster, who is African American and Jewish, was returning a sefer Torah he’d rented for a bar mitzvah where he officiated.

Webster — who lives in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary and in Israel, and ran a b’nai mitzvah tutoring company — carried the holy scroll toward his Lyft. A Chasidic man challenged where he was going. Webster ignored him. Within moments, another Chasid began pestering him. “I defensively told them I owed no explanation and their continued demands and harassment were racist,” Webster wrote on his Facebook page. 

He got into his vehicle but another car, driven by a Chasid, blocked it. Twenty or 30 Chasidim quickly circled. Police eventually dispersed the crowd. “It was one of the most racist and terrifying moments of my life,” Webster wrote.

In response, Webster doubled down on the Jewish community. He started JOC Torah Academy, a space where Jews of color (JOCs) learn from other JOCs. 

Most JOCs, however, walk away when they experience racism, said Ilana Kaufman, who directs the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative. “Racism pushes Jews of color away and we seek our refuge elsewhere,” she said. We spoke just before her initiative released a first-ever analysis of Jewish population studies, titled “Counting Inconsistencies: Analysis of American Jewish Population Studies with a Focus on Jews of Color.”

It found that a million Jews of color are missing from counts of America’s Jewish community. 

“Racism pushes Jews of color away and we seek our refuge elsewhere.”

— Ilana Kaufman

The meta-study was directed by Stanford University’s Ari Kelman, who analyzed seven national Jewish population studies, 15 local and community studies and four student studies. Some studies didn’t ask about race, others did inconsistently and used sampling techniques resulting in undercounting of JOCs, like relying on “Jewish” names.

“My friend Lee Smith would not get called, while Whoopi Goldberg, who isn’t Jewish, would,” Kaufman noted. “Jewish demographic tools don’t have any capacity to count Jews of color in a household,” she said. “It’s as if non-white Jews simply don’t exist.” 

In ways small and large, white Jews communicate to JOCs that they don’t belong. Today JOCs represent 12 to 15% of the American Jewish population. The Jewish community, like America in general, becomes browner with each generation. By 2042, over half of Americans will be multiracial or people of color, Kaufman said, and it will be no different among American Jews.

Raised with her twin brother, David, by their white Jewish mother in San Francisco (their African American father wasn’t involved), Kaufman felt caught between two worlds starting as a preteen. At Jewish camp, she felt unable to bond with the other Jewish girls over hair and clothes, she said. 

After 20 years as a teacher and administrator, Kaufman, 47, worked at the San Francisco Jewish Federation as a program officer and at the city’s Jewish Community Relations Council. In 2015, sickened that black men were being killed by police officers, she pivoted toward connecting racial justice and Jewish philanthropy. A year later, she started the JOC Field Building Initiative. 

Now that we know roughly how many JOCs are missing, how should the community respond? 

“We need a strategic plan where we pave pathways to real dialogue and eventually have leadership teams filled with engaged and savvy JOCs,” Kaufman said. “Our Jewish community is getting more racially diverse. If we stay as we are, we will tumble backward into a past where we don’t count and value all Jews,” she added. “Which Jewish world do you want to live in?”

I, for one, prefer to live in Kaufman’s world, where every Jew counts, rather than push away those who don’t fit into some preconceived notion of what Jewish looks like.

Debra Nussbaum Cohen is the Jewish giving maven at Inside Philanthropy and is a freelance journalist living in New York City.

Making 1 Million Missing Jews of Color Welcome Read More »

How to Mindfully Read This Newspaper

Leave a Comment / Columnists /

Do you know what we need in an age of attention-destroying, context-lacking, rage-inducing consumption of digital story after digital story? A user’s manual for the print edition of a local community newspaper.

If you flip through the pages of the Jewish Journal until you’ve found one “good” article to read, you’re a mindless consumer of the endangered medium known as print. You’re also quite normal. 

Most of us do this and then complain that we didn’t have enough time to read the entire paper, reasoning that if only we had an extra hour, we would read every story while nobly ignoring our phones or tablets.

So how does one manage to extract the potential for meaning that is this weekly collection of diverse Jewish thoughts, values, voices and grievances? It begins by first touching the paper itself. 

Run your fingers along the bottom edges. Paper feels good, doesn’t it? Even if it gives you a little cut, at least that means it’s touched you, and no phone can ever do that, electrical shocks notwithstanding.

Look carefully at the cover. If you were in charge, what topic would you have selected this week? The answer — whether it’s your outrage over the latest political abomination at home or an existential threat abroad — will tell you a lot about what you cherish, and more importantly, what you fear. 

Read the ads, even if they concern issues and events that are of no interest to you. These ads point to a Los Angeles Jewish community that’s alive and thriving, questioning and reconciling, from day schools to retirement homes, film screenings to homes for sale. For that, we are blessed.

“Don’t settle for what you love.
Explore it all. It may surprise you.”

Next, take a moment to read the letters to the editor. Some are cordial, while those that are critical point to a great but often neglected truth: Newspaper writers put themselves on the firing line. Don’t assume that all of them are resilient. They have foibles, just like you.

As for the columns and opinion pieces, don’t skip the story of every writer with whom you disagree, especially if you label him or her the “evil conservative” or the “ignorant liberal.” Reading differing opinions on paper, without the option of clicking on something else that captures your interest — is akin to what the late comedian George Carlin observed by asking, “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” 

Don’t ignore the latest op-ed from the “idiot” who just doesn’t get it or from the “maniac” who drank too deeply from the well of ideological Kool-Aid this week. Try to understand them, and even if you disagree with them, at least familiarize yourself with their arguments so you can weaponize their profound stupidity in the future.

Of course, had turning our backs and refusing to even listen to differing Jewish voices been a tolerated practice during our 3,000 years of history, there would be no Jews left to call “idiots” or “maniacs” today.

If you find religion deplorable, read the Journal’s “Table for Five” Torah commentary, if only to be reminded of your own awkward bar or bat mitzvah decades ago. If you’re Orthodox, read the commentary from the female Reform rabbi. If you’re Reform, read the Orthodox voice. You get the idea.

If you’re worked up about Israel, or even if you’re not, read Political Editor Shmuel Rosner’s weekly column. If you’re into food, or even if you’re not, read Food Editor Yamit Behar Wood’s weekly story. If you love poetry, or even if you don’t, read the poetry page.

In other words, don’t settle for what you love. Explore it all. It may surprise you. 

And don’t forget the obituaries. You might never deliberately seek out those brief lines while browsing online. Read them to feel alive.

The beauty of paper is that it allows us to experience the art of reading without digital distractions. There are no embedded links to other stories, no pop-up ads, no abusive comments at the bottom of each story. 

In fact, paper may even have the power to do the impossible: give us back our attention spans.

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer.

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On Being Versus Becoming

Leave a Comment / Editor's Note /

It’s hard to thrive, or even function, if you don’t feel safe. Emotionally, if there is no love in your life, an inner emptiness gnaws at you wherever you go. If you don’t feel physically safe, a constant anxiety sticks to you. Insecurity, in whatever form, can be debilitating.

If this is true for grown-ups, imagine how true it is for children. A fragile baby is at the mercy of others for both physical and emotional sustenance. Not surprisingly, studies show that secure relationships in the early years are essential to helping children grow into healthy adults.

This was the main subject at a recent luncheon hosted by the Jewish Federation for The First 36 Project, a pilot program geared to “the first 36 months” of life developed by the Simms/Mann Institute, in partnership with Builders of Jewish Education (BJE) and The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. 

The project’s mission, according to its brochure, is “to provide a select group of parent-and-me instructors with an exclusive professional development experience designed to amplify their ability to support parents as they build strong, meaningful bonds with their children.”

In short, the program uses the professional expertise of the Simms/Mann Institute to help babies thrive.

From testimonials and other sources, it’s apparent that the initiative has made a significant impact since it launched in 2013, spreading throughout our community and elsewhere. This is a classic case of the right groups partnering to fill an important community need.

But as much as I enjoyed hearing about the project, what I found unusually refreshing about the luncheon was that the keynote speaker, Rabbi Donniel Hartman, did not restrict himself to the theme of the day. This was a welcome break from events that focus too obsessively on only one agenda.

Hartman, who runs the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, engaged a group of local leaders with a verbal jazz session on the philosophy of being Jewish. He kicked off by wondering why Jews are so small in numbers.

Why, indeed, are we outnumbered by more than 100 to 1 by the two monotheistic faiths that came after us? 

One reason, according to Hartman, is that Judaism doesn’t provide easy answers.

“The way our tradition thinks,” he said, “is that when someone asks you is it A or is it B, more often than not, the Jewish tradition’s answer is ‘Yes.’ ”

To illustrate, he riffed on the “complicated dance” between the state of “being” and the state of “becoming.”

“Because of Abraham’s tests,” Hartman told us, “we are accepted and loved by God, before Torah, before we believed, before we did, before we kept kosher or Shabbat or anything.”

What gets most of the attention in a world that glorifies achievement is the state of becoming — the restlessness to always want to do more.

“I haven’t slept in over 15 years, truly, because I’m constantly worried about what I haven’t done,” he said. “I always felt that to be a Jew is to be the enemy of mediocrity. …To live a Jewish life is to recognize that who you are is not who you ought to be.”

And yet, in the Torah, the “covenant of becoming” comes long after the “covenant of being,” which is represented by the story of Abraham and occurs many centuries before the divine revelation at Sinai.

“Because of Abraham’s tests,” Hartman told us, “we are accepted and loved by God, before Torah, before we believed, before we did, before we kept kosher or Shabbat or anything.”

God chose to bless the Jews merely because they are the children of Abraham, merely because they’re part of the family. That is the covenant of being, a covenant of unconditional acceptance and eternal love.

“I imagined a dance where God’s unconditional love is the music that moves us to do more, to repair the world and ourselves, to reach higher levels of holiness.” 

“To be a Jew is to be challenged to become but to know that you’re loved unconditionally,” he said. The sequence is crucial: “You only come to the covenant of becoming if you have a strong foundation in the covenant of being.”

Among the many ideas Hartman shared, that dance between being and becoming stood out for me. I imagined a dance where God’s unconditional love is the music that moves us to do more, to repair the world and ourselves, to reach higher levels of holiness.  

This was Hartman’s way, perhaps, of connecting to the theme of the day. After all, a baby, as much as anyone, needs that strong foundation of unconditional love as it starts to “become.”

A good beginning, though, is no guarantee of success. Life has become too complicated. When we look at the growing ills in our community, it’s no wonder we have so many programs for the first 36 years of life and beyond — for grown-ups who have difficulty coping and finding meaning in a stressful and lonely world.

Hartman spoke to that group. God loves you no matter what, he told us. Now go and become.

On Being Versus Becoming Read More »

May 24, 2019

Leave a Comment / Print Issue /

 

To read more of our online archives, click here.

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New Jersey Man Who Allegedly Wanted to Shoot Pro-Israel Marchers is Arrested

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

NEW YORK (JTA) — A man from New Jersey who allegedly wanted to shoot pro-Israel rallygoers and bomb Trump Tower was arrested for trying to provide support to Hamas.

Jonathan Xie, 20, of Basking Ridge, was arrested Wednesday, according to WABC-TV. He allegedly made various threats on Instagram, including that he wanted to “shoot everybody” at a pro-Israel march and “bomb Trump Tower.”

He also allegedly displayed a Hamas flag in a video and declared support for Bashar Assad, Saddam Hussein and North Korea, ABC 7 reported.

Xie had considered joining the U.S. Army “to learn how to kill … So I can use that knowledge,” according to court records.

Last month, FBI observed Xie outside the Trump Tower in New York. Later Xie allegedly wrote on Instagram, “I forgot to visit the Israeli embassy in NYC … i want to bomb this place along with Trump Tower.”

New Jersey Man Who Allegedly Wanted to Shoot Pro-Israel Marchers is Arrested Read More »

Remains of Over 1,000 Holocaust Victims Uncovered During Construction Work Reburied in Belarus

Leave a Comment / Online, Worldwide /

(JTA) — Volunteers in Belarus reburied the remains of more than 1,000 Holocaust victims whose bodies were discovered recently during construction work in the city of Brest.

The burial Tuesday was conducted by volunteers from the Zaka Jewish search-and-rescue organization and overseen by a local Chabad rabbi, the news website Jewish.ru reported. The remains were put into several coffins and interred in a Jewish ceremony.

The mass grave was found in February containing human remains belonging to adults and children, as well as clothes, shoes and other personal items.

The local contractor, Pribuzhsky Kwartia, suspended construction on the luxury housing project and called the authorities.

Mayor Alexander Rogachuk said the bones belonged to “victims of ghettos,” meaning Jews imprisoned there by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The Nazis killed 3 million civilians in Belarus, of whom 800,000 were Jewish.

Remains of Over 1,000 Holocaust Victims Uncovered During Construction Work Reburied in Belarus Read More »

Indiana Man Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Vandalizing Synagogue

Leave a Comment / Online, United States /

(JTA) — An Indiana man sympathetic to Nazism and white supremacy was sentenced to three years in prison for spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti on the property of a suburban Indianapolis synagogue.

Nolan Brewer, 21, of Eminence, was sentenced Monday for conspiring to violate the civil rights of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla. He pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime, the Indianapolis Star reported.

In July he spray-painted a black swastika surrounded by a red background and the German and Nazi Military Iron Cross on a wall of a brick shed outside the synagogue. He also attempted to set the property on fire. Brewer also was ordered to repay the synagogue $700 for the damage.

His wife, who is a minor, helped to paint the graffiti, according to the newspaper. Both were arrested days after the attack, having been caught on surveillance video purchasing red and black spray-paint and bandanas from a Wal-Mart the day before the vandalism.

Brewer told investigators that they targeted the synagogue because it was “full of ethnic Jews,” according to the Star. Federal officials said the couple planned to set the synagogue building alight with homemade explosive devices, the newspaper reported, but were scared off by the synagogue’s lights and surveillance cameras.

The incident prompted a strong response from local leaders as well as Vice President Mike Pence, who said at the time of the incident, “These vile acts of anti-Semitism must end.”

Indiana Man Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Vandalizing Synagogue Read More »

Jewish Agenda for 2020: Dump Trump to Eliminate Anti-Semitism

Leave a Comment / Israel, Online, Rosner's Domain /

I guess it’s time to talk once again about the Jews and American politics. 2020 is not far off and presidential politics are on everyone’s minds — pollsters and organizations included. The Jewish Electorate Institute published its findings on how the Jewish electorate views the 2020 elections. These results are based on an online survey among 1,000 Jewish voters nationally. The margin of error is +/-3.2 percentage points. 

So, what do we learn from this survey?

1. American Jews feel threatened. “Nearly three-quarters (73%) say Jews in the United States are less secure compared to two years ago.” 

This number is quite dramatic. Whether the political response of most Jews to this sentiment is the proper response is a different matter: “The largest bloc (43%) say they are looking to elect a candidate who shares their values, and 39% say they want to work to defeat President [Donald] Trump in 2020.” 

So, the Jews feel threatened, and believe that defeating Trump is the way to improve their situation. Only time will tell if their assessment of the situation and their proposed remedy make sense. 

 2. Jewish activists and leaders ought to note that only few Jews consider intensified Jewish activity to be the best response to anti-Semitism. Only 4% believe that becoming more active in a synagogue is one of the best ways to “improve the security of Jews,” only 12% prescribe “Jewish social action.” In other words, their response to anti-Semitism is political, not communal. 

3. Combative Israelis ought to note that only 12% of US Jews believe that adding “armed security” is going to improve their security. If you need more proof that Israeli Jews and American Jews live on different planets, there is it.

4. When a Jew feel threatened and believes that the president is the main cause of the threat, it is no wonder that he does not approve of the job the president is doing. Indeed, President Trump’s job approval rating among Jews is low. 

But now, look at how similar the following numbers seem: 73% of Jews feel more threatened; 71% disapprove of Trump’s handling of his job; 71% disapprove of Trump’s handling of anti-Semitism; 67% intend not to vote for Trump in 2020; 65% are Democrats. Is this a response to anti-Semitism or merely politics-as-usual with a new and possibly effective narrative to be used against the president? 

Similarly: The number of Jews that say they are Republicans: 25%. The number of Jews intending to vote for Trump: 25%. The number of Jews concerned about “Democrats tolerating anti-Semitism in their own ranks:” 27%.  

The mixing of anti-Semitism concerns and charges and political tendencies continues.

 5. Here is one hint as you search for answers: While Orthodox Jews are exposed to anti-Semitism no less, and possibly more than other Jews (because they are easier to identify in a crowd), their political response to the new circumstances is very different. The most visible manifestation of this is the fact that most Orthodox Jews (57%) approve of President Trump. (by the way, the sample for this survey included a relatively small number of Orthodox Jews: 7%).

6. The new report says, “Domestic issues dominate the policy priorities of the Jewish community as they determine which candidate to support in 2020.”That is to say, Jews are like most other Americans. It’s not about “the Benjamins,” nor about the “allegiance” with Israel. It’s about America’s future, and the future of Jews in America. 

Still, it is not easy for an Israeli to accept that “a candidate’s stance on Israel is of relatively low importance to Jewish voters as they determine which candidate to support in the 2020 election.” And one has to wonder: Is Israel so low on the agenda because it no longer matters to Jewish Americans? Or maybe it is low because the Jews in some unconscious way caved to the intimidation of “dual loyalty” smear perpetrators. That is, they prefer not to tell pollsters that Israel does matter.

7. Of the two options — Israel doesn’t matter, or intimidation works —I’m not even sure which is worse. 

8. On the other hand, consider these facts. Sixty-five percent of Jews say that “whether the candidate supports Israel” is “one of the most important” or “very important” for them as they decide “for whom you will vote.” That’s two thirds of all Jews. And if we add those who say “somewhat important” we get to 92%. So, it’s not as if the Jews stopped saying Israel is important. The only thing that happened is that they also say, in even greater numbers, that other issues matter to them.  

Looking at the overall number makes one wonder about the methodology of the question. The Jews deem important protecting Medicare and Social Security (97%); combating anti-Semitism (96%); making quality affordable healthcare available to every American (95%);  enacting gun safety laws (93%); combating the influence of white supremacists and the far right (92%); combating terrorism (97%); and the list goes on and on proving that Jewish voters want everything. They want jobs and security, they want fair taxes and public education, and they also want support for Israel. That supporting Israel gets a slightly lesser ranking than gun control could signal something, but could also be an insignificant result. 

I recommend that next year the Institute make the question one of priorities: force the interviewees to choose “support” or “guns;” to say what they want more, “support” or “fair taxes.” Only then will we have a clear picture of Israel’s importance to the voters.

9. In the same vein, the only issue where majority of US Jews approve of the president’s job is in US-Israel relations (55%). This signals appreciation. This signals that Jewish voters attribute importance to this item.  

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