JustASC

We’re working on a story for Thursday about the NJ gubernatorial elections and the issues Jews care about. One thing we’ve been asking people to respond to is the idea (expressed here by Matt Brooks, head of the Republican Jewish Coalition) that for many Jews the election will be a chance to express their disapproval of Obama’s Mideast policies.

In a conference call with Jon Corzine this morning, I asked him if the election was a referendum on Obama. His reply: 

To you and readers I’ll say the same thing I do when others bring that question: Isn’t it great that President Obama supports your candidacy and visits here to advocate it. The voters of NJ are ultimately going to decide who is going to serve their state the best in the coming four years, who is going to get us out stronger from the economic recession, who represents their values and how we  deliver healthcare and provide for a strong educational system.

Many [in the] Jewish community know full well we’ve done more on corporate tax reform and changing the  economic environment to make it more attractive to businesses to come to NJ …

But I think that at the end of the day this vote wil be taken by all communities more based on what they think an individual will do for their families, their communites, their lives here in the state of New Jersey…

In response to my question about whether he’ll pay the price among those who disapprove of Obama’s Mideast policies:

At the margin there may be some who believe that the president is not standing as strong with Israel as they would like to see and they might want to send a message. I think there will be some voters who may want to use that, use the ’no’ vote as a way to send a signal but I don’t think that is very large bloc and I know there are mixed views within the Jewish community about the president’s activities and actions — vocal groups on both sides.

No one can doubt for a moment that both when I was U.S.  senator and within the bounds of what I have the capacity to do as a governor I have been absolutely supportive of Israel’s right to peace with security and will continue to stand in every possible way with Israel as our best ally.

And you know we’ve expanded the number of dollars we have in Israel Bonds, you know about the Iranian divestiture, we speak out against the anti-Semitism at every opportunity we can and promoting an agenda that is very consistent with the vast majority of Jewish citizens in the state. 

Jon Corzine did a conference call with the state’s Jewish newspapers today (it was me and two others)  and was asked about the anti-Jewish, anti-gay Westboro protests. Charitably, I’d  say he wasn’t well-briefed on this one, and answered carefully if dispassionately:

We’ve been about as strong as any administration in writing … civil union laws and standing up for the pushback against anti-Semitic activities  and protecting our synagogues and federation buildings and others. Anytime there is ever a risk along these lines, we do not have the ability to keep people from expressing their freedom of speech but we will be attentive to it , naturally. I know we’re taking steps to make sure it [the protests] is reasonably well controlled. 

The ADL’s Etzion Neuer responds to today’s NJ protests by the Westboro Baptist Church. We’ll have updates throughout the day:

Thumbing your nose at the bigots, as some did three weeks ago in Brooklyn, may have a cathartic effect for some. But in the end it energizes and emboldens the bigots and hands them a publicity coup.

I’m a little late in acknowledging New York Magazine’s big pro and con feature on circumcision. But a piece I wrote on Sept. 2 anticipated Hanna Rosin’s defense by six weeks. Like Rosin, I wrote that circumcision is barbaric, but it’s not that barbaric; that its medical benefits outweigh the myths about trauma; and that folks with justifiedly personal qualms shouldn’t try to ruin it for those of who find it a difficult but profound aspect of Jewish tradition and belonging.

Writes Rosin:

People who oppose circumcision are animated by a kind of rage and longing that seems larger than the thing itself. Websites are filled with testimonies from men who believe their lives were ruined by the operation they had as an infant. I can only conclude that it wasn’t the cutting alone that did the ruining.

Eagleton has its latest poll out on the NJ gubernatorial race, and it has a cross-tab for religion.

Warning: Only 32 of the 543 respondents identified themselves as Jewish. But for what it’s worth, how the candidates stacked up among the Jews:

Corzine 44%

Christie 28%

Daggett 22%

Don’t know 6%

In his big interview in the New York Times Magazine, J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami was quoted as making the following ruh-oh statement:

The average age of the dozen or so [J Street] staff members is about 30. Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.” They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.” 

As soon as I read this, I understood that a/ he was speaking in generalizations about the generation of Jews attracted to J Street, not the J Street staff per se; b/ readers would nonetheless ignore that distinction and dismiss J Streeters as indifferent to their Jewish heritage; and c/ Ben-Ami would come to regret saying it.

Indeed, it turns out Ben-Ami had sought a retraction from the Times, but didn’t get it. He discusses the quote in his interview yesterday with Jeffrey Godlberg. Goldberg’s writing on J Street has been otherwise on-target and insightful, but here Goldberg disappointingly misreads the quote in the narrowest possible way:

Jeffrey Goldberg: Let me ask you something about something that you said to James Traub in The New York Times Magazine. You said that all of the people who work for you are intermarried and I was wondering –

Jeremy Ben-Ami: No, I never said that. I asked The Times for a retraction but they wouldn’t give it. I never said that. What I said is that the young generation of Jews is a different generation, and all that. No one is intermarried in my office! No one on my staff is intermarried.

JG: So it’s an inaccurate quote.

JB: An inaccurate quotation. Our staff is not intermarried. Not that that’s a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with being intermarried.

JG: This is getting Seinfeldian here.

JB: There’s nothing wrong with intermarriage. What’s wrong with intermarriage?

JG: We’re a small people –

JB: Right, but you know what I find? I find that most of my friends, and we’re talking mid-to-late forties at this point, most of my friends who intermarried, their spouses either converted, or they’re kids are being raised Jewish. What I find so fascinating about my intermarried friends is that they’re searching for welcoming Jewish communities. So let’s make ourselves a welcoming community.

That’s hardly a radical position inthe Jewish community (see this and this), although some of the same folks who are apoplectic about J Street’s deviation from communal “consensus” on Israel are bound to hate efforts to be more welcoming to the intermarried.

The attachment of intermarried Jews to Israel hs become the topic of  mainstream study as well. As Steven M. Cohen and Ari Kleiman told Shmuel Rosner last year:

In our study, Beyond Distancing, we found that age is directly related to Israel attachment over the entire age range. Elderly Jews are more attached than middle-aged Jews and both are more attached than younger adult Jews. Our statistical analysis pointed to the major explanation for this trend: the rise in intermarriage among younger Jews. Younger cohorts contain more Jews married to non-Jews, and, increasingly, intermarried Jews who are younger are more distant from Israel than intermarried Jews who are older.

Of course, many intermarried Jews remain attached to Israel, but it’s no surprise that many of them would define that attachment in different ways than the inmarried and would be attracted to J Street’s stances — more assertive about seeking a peace, more willing to acknowledge Israel’s faults, and thus implicitly critical of the current Israeli government and many mainstream Jewish leaders.

Depending on your political views, you can either conclude that a/ those most likely to push the “peace” platform are weakly identified Jews to begin with and won’t sweat the consequences, or b/ that those with looser bonds to the Jewish community and to Jewish tribal identity are able to see the situation with more clarity and less ethnic defensiveness.

I think there’s truth in both those positions.

JCC MetroWest’s CEO Alan Feldman has a new update for JCC members about the Westboro church protest. Seems like some members wanted to do more than purposefully ignore the protest:

It has been suggested that we organize a counter-protest to express our condemnation of the WBC’s message. While we agree that we must speak out against intolerance, we believe that any counter-demonstrations outside will only further their agenda for publicity and dilute our message of tolerance and equality.

Please also remember that the JCC is home to a large number of young children and older adults. Any face-to-face conflict with the WBC could heighten tensions and serve to create unwarranted safety concerns and feelings of insecurity.

Instead, we would ask you to join us inside the JCC at our Community Dialogue in Steiner Court (near the Café) on Tuesday at 1:00pm. (more…)

Ma’ariv has a long article on a women’s cooking cooperative in Israel, seeded in large part with help from the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ. The women, all from the relatively disadvantaged Negev region of Ofakim, created a business that is “already famous across the Negev and is well known in the dining halls of the big high-tech companies in central Israel.”

Read Nitza Houser’s translation of Uri Binder’s article after the jump. (more…)

A reader asks a challenging question about our newspaper’s pre-coverage of the Westboro Church protests:

If we are trying to ignore the [WBC] why do they get a page 1 mention and a page 4 story for an event that has not even happened yet? Seems to me they may be getting more attention and ink by being ignored than if they actually conducted the protest they are planning, and far more publicity than if they took out a full page ad.

It’s a fair point. But I think it is important to inform the community about the protests, which will happen whether or not we report on them, and let people know how their leadership and institutions are preparing to react (and it’s not as if the major institutions are keeping it quiet — UJC, ADL and JCC issued and widely distributed public statements, and Rutgers Hillel is planning a major counter-rally).

The institutions are also eager to get their message out – specifically, urging the public to not engage with the protesters, and to trust that their leaders and law enforcement are doing what they can to keep the peace.

Flip the question around — if we didn’t report on them, and people came to the JCC on Oct. 27 to find a bunch of people carrying “God hates Jews” signs, who would be served? I know as a member of the public I would want to know who these folks are, how big a threat they pose, how to explain them to my kids, and how one might respond – all things explained in the article. In my mind, the educational function we provide outweighs the concern about giving these folks free publicity.

JCC MetroWest has an update about next week’s protest by the Westboro extremists:

Since the WBC counts on a “loud bark,” we should not validate their strategy and should resist all temptation to engage with them.

Please be aware that they have a constitutional right to picket….

Although you are entitled to your right to free speech, we ask that you calmly pass these protestors and walk directly into or out of our building without incident.

To show support for our community, please join fellow members, guests, and staff for an Informal Community Dialogue in Steiner Court from 1:00pm to 1:30pm on Tuesday, October 27. Light refreshments will be served.