July 22, 2014

Jon Stewart had a rather amusing bit on his program last night. Each time he would mention the word “Israel” all of the “correspondents” on his show would pop up and begin yelling at him. When the yelling calmed down all but one of the commentators disappeared. After a pregnant pause the man looked at Stewart, scowled and, with disgust said “a self-hating Jew.” Then he too disappeared.

“Look,” Stewart opined after the bit had run its course, “obviously there are many strong opinions on this. But just merely mentioning Israel or questioning in any way the effectiveness or humanity of Israel’s policies is not the same thing as being pro-Hamas.”

I could not agree more.

At the same time, while there are indeed, “many strong opinions,” not all opinions are equally valid. And while I know it is not politically correct to say so, some opinions are simply wrong.

I get the fact that there are knee-jerk reactions to the current situation. I know I have mine. I also know where they come from. My knee-jerk reactions come from the fact that it is my family and friends running to bomb shelters on a regular basis. It is my friends’ children who are currently serving in the IDF. My knee-jerk reactions come from the fact that whenever the names of fallen IDF soldiers are released I read them hoping my friends’ kids won’t be named. And my knee-jerk reactions come from the fact that, for the first seven days of the current crisis, 19 colleagues and I were in Israel and jumped whenever the red alert app told us a missile may or may not be headed  our way. (Since returning to the U.S., I have left the app running lest I lose perspective and a sense of urgency.) Yes, I understand the knee-jerk reactions.

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July 16, 2014
Visiting Israel on a national Jewish federations mission, Maxine Murnick said she was disappointed when her group was discouraged from visiting Ofakim, in Israel’s beleaguered South.

“Can you imagine if somebody advised you against going to Millburn or Morris Plains?” she asked.

New Jersey residents visiting Israel during its current clash with Hamas got a close look at what it means to be in Israel when Hamas missiles pour in from Gaza, as air raid sirens sound frequently, and dashes to missile shelters interrupt the mundane activities of daily life.

Murnick, campaign chair for the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, said the overwhelming impression she was left with was “the resiliency of the Israeli people, which is just something to behold.”

Murnick was one of several local leaders — including federation president Leslie Dannin Rosenthal and assistant executive vice president Jeffrey Korbman — visiting Israel on the July 7-13 Campaign Chairs’ and Directors’ Mission of the Jewish Federations of North America. They briefed local Jewish leaders on the situation via a conference call on July 13, as the Greater MetroWest federation launched an Israel Emergency Campaign (see related story).

August 29, 2012

The year was 1984 and I was a student at Duke University. During the fall semester I spent time working on Jim Hunt’s senatorial campaign. It was not so much that I was working on behalf of Jim Hunt but rather, I was working to unseat incumbent Jesse Helms, one of the most anti-Israel senators at the time. His record on Israel was, as one article put it, “the most negative of any member of the Senate.” Among other things, Helms was the sole senator to vote against prohibiting American companies from joining the Arab League boycott of Israel. During the 1982 Lebanon War, he called for the United States to break all diplomatic relations with Israel. While Hunt won our district, Helms kept his seat and remained in the Senate.

The next year, I was living and studying at the Rothberg School for Overseas Students at Hebrew University when I received a call asking if I would attend worship in the university’s beit knesset the next morning. The reason? Senator Jesse Helms was coming to Israel and would be attending. I wasn’t interested in meeting Helms but I did attend. Upon returning home an amazing thing happened. Helms, long an opponent of all things Israel, did an about face and became a staunch supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. “It was,” according to Morris Amitay, former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “a complete switch.” Helms continued to be a supporter of Israel until his retirement from the Senate in 2003.

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May 7, 2014

Here are just a few snippets from recent conversations regarding American Jewish support for Israel:

“Rabbi, I’m very upset and want to talk to you. How dare you allow a group like J Street to speak at Temple?”

“Rabbi, I simply do not understand how a social and religious progressive like you can be part of such a right-wing conservative organization as AIPAC.”

Two apparently opposite statements that are, I would argue, two sides of the same coin. To me, both reflect what is wrong with the current discourse with regard to the American Jewish community’s involvement in pro-Israel activity. We seem to be living in an era where Jewish issues have gone the way of Fox News and MSNBC: We simply listen to ourselves and those with whom we agree, and we demonize those who have a different perspective.

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