American Jewish liberals have lost the plot

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Throughout the two thousand years of Jews living in the Diaspora, there has been no precedent comparable to the behaviour of major liberal mainstream sectors of the American Jewish community…writes Isi Leibler.

Isi Leibler

They are undermining themselves and provoking massive waves of resentment from Americans, many of whom were favourably disposed towards them.

The United States has been the home of the largest Jewish community in the Diaspora over the past half century and was regarded by many Jews as the “goldene medina”. Traditional antisemitism is at an all-time low with the exception of the current anti-Israeli agitation initiated at campuses by Muslims and far left radicals. Many Jews have become affluent, powerful and are highly respected by most Americans.

Until recently, all mainstream Jewish organisations sought to maintain Democrat and Republican bipartisanship with regard to Israel and major issues of Jewish concern. This, despite the fact that for complex historical reasons the vast majority of American Jews were inclined towards liberalism and voted Democrat.

Even after eight years of President Obama’s efforts to create daylight between Israel and the United States in order to appease the Iranians and other Arab countries and despite the extraordinary support for Israel expressed by all sections of the Republican Party, Jews still tended to vote Democrat. This contrasted sharply with Anglo-Jewry whose members defected in droves from the British Labor Party when it became anti-Israeli/antisemitic under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

Regrettably a number of mainstream U.S. liberal Jewish organisations broke with all tradition and displayed unprecedented and extreme partisanship in the recent US election and its aftermath. This may have disastrous long-term repercussions on the standing and influence of the American Jewish community.

The Anti-Defamation League, a hitherto respected body whose principal mandate is to combat antisemitism, began crossing red lines as soon as its new CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, a former Obama aide, assumed leadership after the retirement of Abe Foxman. Even before the elections, Greenblatt assumed a J Street profile and introduced left wing policy initiatives including pontificating and criticising Israeli policies which were totally beyond his jurisdiction.

At the same time he opposed legislation to prohibit BDS, suggesting that many of its supporters were misled idealists seeking to promote the peace process. He also minimised concern for the rabid antisemitic platform of the Black Lives Matter movement, excusing it on the grounds that it was engineered by a small minority.

More significantly he downplayed the escalating anti-Israelism and antisemitism on the campuses initiated by Muslim and far left groups – highly ironic for the head of the organisation whose raison d’être is to combat antisemitism. But it was in the course of America’s most bitter and brutal electoral race that a number of liberal Jewish groups, headed by the ADL, initiated a partisan campaign against Trump and his supporters.

Like most Americans, many Jews were distressed and polarised by the shameful and vulgar behaviour of candidates. As individuals, American Jews have every right to express their political feelings. But officially, as Jewish mainstream organisations – as distinct from politically left Jewish groups – they had no right to speak on behalf of the Jewish community on issues unconnected to Jewish rights or interests.

It is also understandable that many long term Jewish Democratic supporters were  bitterly disappointed with the unexpected outcome of the elections. But to hysterically proclaim the demise of democracy and the rise of fascism, or to compare the Trump ascendancy to the 9/11 attacks and imply that Trump supporters – half of the electorate – are extremist, is sheer lunacy. Indeed the despair and frenzy reached such levels after the elections that a number of Conservative and Reform synagogues conducted formal mourning ceremonies. This is truly collective madness.

Yet ADL officials together with Reform and Conservative leaders also publicly exploited antisemitism as a vehicle to slander the Trump campaign, hurling accusations of antisemitism and fascism. In so doing these groups may have caused irreparable harm to the Jewish community from amongst Trump supporters who comprise half of the American people, many of whom were hitherto positively inclined towards Jews.

The false allegations and innuendoes of antisemitism were accompanied by counter-productive hysteria, warning of the threat emanating from marginal right-wing antisemitic groups, implying that these few hundred extremists were a critical component of Trump’s support and thus the entire party was compromised.

The campaign against the extremist fringes and the national media exposure to these relatively unknown marginal neo-Nazis and degenerates, like David Duke and Richard Spencer and the email hate peddlers, achieved the undesirable result of catapulting them into national personalities, which they could never have dreamt of achieving.

Stoking the fires of hysteria after the elections, Greenblatt proclaimed at an ADL Conference that antisemitism in the United States has never been as bad as it is today since the 1930s. He was not relating to the real threat of burgeoning antisemitism at the campuses but referring to the few hundred Ku Klux Klan lunatics, White Supremacists and neo-Nazis allegedly empowered by Trump. The fact is that whatever his failings may be, Trump is certainly no anti-Semite.  He has a daughter converted to Judaism who is religiously observant and is surrounded by Jews.

The real threat to the Jewish community to which the ADL should be focusing, is at the college campuses where anti-Israelism initiated by Muslim and far Left groups has now morphed into open antisemitism with increasing manifestations of violence. Freedom of expression is being denied to pro-Israeli spokesmen who are frequently howled down by these “progressives”. Having regard to the fact that graduates from these institutions will become the leaders of the future, it is truly worrisome that they are being nurtured in such a hostile environment and that it requires courage in many campuses to support Israel.

Displaying double standards, incredibly the ADL provided an imprimatur to Keith Ellison to become the new head of the Democratic National Council. Ellison is a Muslim who was a former follower of Louis Farrakhan and has a long record of anti-Israeli hostility. Yet Greenblatt went so far as to describe Ellison as “a man of good character… an important ally in the fight against antisemitism”. Instead of combating antisemitism, the ADL was whitewashing an opponent of Israel with an antisemitic background in order to promote its leftist agenda. However, the public outcry was so overwhelming that  that a week later Greenblatt was forced to state that after  seeing “disturbing”  remarks expressed by Ellison, the ADL now had “serious doubts about his ability to faithfully represent the party’s traditional support for Israel”.

Alas, the extent to which the Democratic Party has veered from its traditional pro-Israel stance was exemplified by the fact that the Charles Schumer, the incoming Jewish Senate Minority Leader, shamefully reiterated that “I stand by Rep. Ellison for the DNC chair…”while I disagree with him on some of his past positions”.

Fortunately, the new administration is unlikely to be antisemitic. Aside from other factors, Trump is surrounded by orthodox Jewish officials who are also passionately pro-Israel. But nevertheless, these partisan mainstream Jewish interventions and refusal to accept the outcome of a democratic election create major tensions and have the potential of severely undermining the standing of the Jewish community.

The only major organisation explicitly condemning this behaviour is the Zionist Organisation of America headed by Mort Klein.

To their credit, following the elections,  Malcolm Hoenlein on behalf of the President’s Conference of Major Jewish Organisations and David Harris of the American Jewish Committee called on Jews to help reunite the nation and encourage the incoming administration to calm the passions and judge them on their actions.

This enlightened approach is highly commendable. But it is unlikely to suppress the hysteria amongst those sections of the community which define their Judaism as comprising liberal universalism and place the welfare of Israel very low in their priorities. Moreover the links with Israel, which until now were the primary source of Jewish identity for non-Orthodox Jews, will tragically continue to erode.

In addition to the polarised division between Orthodox Jews and the rest of the community, the assimilatory tendencies will further increase which will lead to the ongoing contraction and quality of the Jewish community.

Far left Liberals are as free as anyone else to engage in political campaigns, but those heading mainstream Jewish organisations must be compelled to cease exploiting their position and using antisemitism as a vehicle to promote their partisan agenda.

They should also ask themselves one question. Who represents a greater threat to democracy and American Jews? A handful of marginal neo-Nazis and White Supremacists who nobody had ever heard of or a Muslim with a long record of antisemitism and hostility to Israel who heads the Democratic National Council?

American Jewry is the most successful, powerful and respected Diaspora in Jewish history. If organisations like the ADL refuse to hearken to the wise counsel expressed by leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein, Mort Klein or David Harris but maintain their current politically partisan policies, American Jews will be marginalised and be perceived as the extension of a Democratic Party which is drifting increasingly further away from its traditional pro-Israel policy.

 Isi Leibler lives in Jerusalem. He is a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.