30 Mar
Uncategorized

Loving Israel The Right (Or Left) Way

By Amanda Walgrove Last week, Sarah Palin visited Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other members of Israel's right-wing coalition, including Likud Chairman, Danny Danon. Many have questioned whether or not this was an early campaign move; many GOP members who may throw their hats into the Presidential ring—Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and Haley Barbour—have recently made visits to Israel as well. “It’s not the Ames straw poll, but I do think a visit to Israel is an important stop for folks who are running for president,” Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks told Politico. “So much of what our commander-in-chief will deal with in the White House is rooted in this part of the world.” Besides being a shiny credential on the checklist for candidacy, Palin’s visit also serves to put another...

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28 Feb
Uncategorized

At J Street, Attempting to Redefine “Pro-Israel”

By Niv Elis In its second-ever conference in Washington, DC this week, the self-described “Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel” lobby group J Street drew some 2,000 left-leaning Israel supporters. By its very existence J Street, has sparked a conflicted and sometimes angry debate within the Jewish community as to what it means to be “pro-Israel.”  Before J Street, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held a virtual monopoly in Washington on the term pro-Israel.  For AIPAC, it meant supporting a “strong U.S.-Israel relationship” by keeping disagreements out of the public spotlight and, more broadly, supporting the policies of the democratically elected government in Israel, regardless of who was in power.  But critics, including many J Street supporters, accuse AIPAC of being more sympathetic to the conservative Likud party and promoting its hard-line policies. J Street has its own critics, who...

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21 Jan
Latest

Jews Up For Grabs

By Symi Rom-Rymer In advertising the November debate between Alan Dershowitz and Jeremy Ben-Ami, the 92nd St. Y framed it as a discussion over Israeli policy, Iran, and military vs. diplomatic strategies in the Middle East.   Yet it turned out to be a debate not so much about foreign policy, as a fight for the right to represent the Jewish community.   A clash between the old and the new.  Who has the right to speak for American Jews? Can that right extend to more than one group?  And most importantly, (at least to Dershowitz) who has earned that right? There was, of course, the requisite tussling over J Street’s branding and each of their positions on Iran but the real flashpoint erupted around J Street’s very existence.   Despite its successes in its first 18 months, including being...

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07 Jan
Latest

Hannah Rosenthal Under Fire

By Symi Rom-Rymer The mock outrage and cheap scoring of political points that has ensued in the wake of a Haaretz interview with Hannah Rosenthal, the new U.S. Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism, is quite a thing to behold.  Conservative American Jewish leaders made it clear from the moment that Rosenthal’s appointment was announced that they were upset with the Obama administration’s decision.  From writing open letters (Abe Foxman) to writing condescending op-eds, (Gregg Rickman) those who disagree with her views have sought to undermine her judgment and competence from the start. It should be no surprise that Rosenthal reacted the way that she did to Ambassador Michael Oren’s comments regarding J Street.  As a former J Street board member and member of the left-wing organization Americans for Peace Now, it is clear where her...

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14 Sep
Latest

Jeremy Ben Ami is the new Don Draper

By Sarah Breger The interweb has been abuzz this past weekend over the publication of the NYT magazine profile of J Street. Critics of the left-leaning Israel group have promptly responded, asserting that having moderate Arab and Muslim board members makes the group anti-Israel and calling into question polls J Street has published. No matter how you feel about J Street, you have to admit it is pretty impressive that the not even two-year-old organization has received so much media attention. Or as M.J. Rosenberg at Talking Points Memo puts it, Don Draper has nothing on Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street’s executive director. The bigger story however may be the decline of AIPAC, the once untouchable Israel group. As Robert Dreyfuss writes in this month's Mother Jones: “AIPAC is facing something of a perfect storm. Advocating for stronger...

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13 Nov
Arts & Culture, Culture, Latest, Misc, Religion

The Forward 50: 2008 Jews of the Year

By Jeremy Gillick The Forward has published its annual list of America’s 50 most important Jews: the Forward 50. Winners include Rahm Emanuel, Obama's newly appointed Chief of Staff, about whom you can read here. There's also Morris Allen, a Conservative Rabbi from Minnesota who helped re-invent kashrut as a moral rather than merely legal imperative, just as Agriprocessors, America's largest kosher meat producer, sunk deeper and deeper into sin, exploitation and eventually, bankruptcy. Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder of the new, liberal Jewish, Israel lobby group J-Street, is at the top of the list too. Although this choice is perhaps more a reflection of the Forward's editorial stance than of Ben-Ami's success, the creation of a viable alternative to AIPAC is, at the very least, a major symbolic accomplishment. And it could become much more than that. Here's what Moment...

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