In my diaries, I have been trying to make clear and explain the divide in the Jewish community that exists relative to the Jewish community in the United States and it's complicated relationship to Israel. For many outside the Jewish community many think that that Jewish support for the Likud policies of Israel is monolithic. Witness the recent spate of Anti-Semitic occurances in Montreal or the insidious attack on Jewish Students by Anti-Israeli students. But many here and more so in the Outside world are completely in error regarding this
In my daily visit to the Americans for Peace Now Page I came across a reference to a New York Times editorial talking about the changing face of the American Jewish community and how the new view of supporting Israel does not equal blind acceptance of the nation's actions.
In This NY Times Editorial
Criticizing Israel has long been the equivalent of touching a third rail in many Jewish families and friendships, relegating disagreements to a conversational demilitarized zone where only the innocent and foolhardy go.......
But while those voices have been strong and their message unmistakable, a newly outspoken wing of Israel supporters has begun to challenge the old-school reflexive support of the country’s policies, suggesting that one does not have to be slavish to Israeli policies to love Israel.
"Most Jews have mixed feelings about Israel," said Rabbi Tamara Kolton of the Birmingham Temple, a secular humanistic congregation in Farmington Hills. "They support Israel, but it’s complicated. Until now, you never heard from those people. You heard only from the organized ones, the ones who are 100 percent certain, we’re right, they’re wrong."
In the 2008 election, 78 percent of Jewish voters supported Mr. Obama, and surveys have suggested that most continue to back his policies.
Now the NYT editorial cites a poll by the American Jewish Committee a mainstream and more conservative entity. However this feeling that Rabbi Kolton discusses can be more fleshed out and is supported in a contrary poll by J Street which shows that support for President Obama and his Peace attempts are still high.
In the article the writer quotes Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street who very rightly says:
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder of a Washington lobby known as J Street, the latest of several organizations representing the voice of liberal Jews who support Israel but not all its policies, said many people have long felt ignored or silenced by the pro-Israel establishment in the United States.
"People are tired of being told that you are either with us or against us," he said. "The majority of American Jews support the president, support the two-state solution and do not feel that they have been well represented by organizations that demand obedience to every wish of the Israeli government. If you had taken their word for it, Obama should have gotten 12 percent of the Jewish vote. But he got 80. That should say something."
Which pretty much sums things up. One cannot argue with the fact that American Jews overwhelming supported President Obama and still do. Yesterday, I diared a column by Haaretz columnist Carlo Strenger who stated that the Right is attempting to define how we American Jews view ourselves in relation to Israel. Not only though is the Right attempting to portray Jewish support for Israel as such but so is the Left. Attempts to cut out the Israeli Peace Movement and Israeli Center and Left by these unlikely allies though are failing. More and more people are seeing that there is a growing contingent in Israel AND one that is majority in America of Jewish people that are progressive, and unafraid to take on critics from both sides of the political spectrum to try to end the vicious conflict in the Middle East.
This divide is not without conflict in the American Jewish Community. The main and most powerfully organized groups are fairly conservative (not Tea-bagger, wingnut crazy - but more old school conservative) but the up and coming groups like J Street and it's European counterpart J Call I feel are more representative of the Jewish Progressive Wing.
Make no mistake, this part of the Jewish polity advocates for strong friendship between the U.S. (and Europe) and Israel.... however it takes a needed critical view of the relationship between our countries and how that relationship can be improved by a return to traditional progressive Jewish values.
Lately there has been a spate of Public figures coming out strenuously AGAINST the progressive Jewish movement on both sides. One side, the Right, claims we are "traitors Israel and Judaism", the other side claims we support the "injustices of the occupation" despite the fact that the movement wants nothing more than to end the occupation. However, neither side wants to acknowledge what is becoming if not is the majority of the American Jewish political populace.