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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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Reform Leader Calls On U.S. To Pressure Israel, Jews To Pressure U.S. |
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by haaretz via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
24 Nov 2003
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Note: This is a significant statement, because the organization Yoffie leads -- the newly renamed URJ, formerly UAHC (Union of American Hebrew Congregations) -- institutionally represents all Reform Jewish congregations in the United States, and therefore can be said to speak institutionally for a large segment of the American Jewish community. This contrasts with the oft-Indymedia-quoted but essentially irrelevant Neturai Karta. |
Last update - 11:06 24/11/2003
Reform leader calls on U.S. to pressure Israel, Jews to pressure U.S.
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent
NEW YORK – Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism (formerly known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregation), did not attend the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly (GA) in Jerusalem last week. It was not a form of protest of any kind, just a scheduling problem.
But to the thousands of American Jews who did attend the gathering in Israel and the million and a half members of his organization, Rabbi Yoffie sent a sharp and unequivocal message that may not necessarily please the Israeli government or the American-Jewish establishment. At the biannual conference of the Reform movement that took place two weeks ago in Minneapolis, Yoffie broke the vow of silence he had taken upon himself since the beginning of the intifada and sharply attacked the government’s settlement policy, which he says endangers the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.
In an interview with Haaretz in his New York office, just a few days after the conference, Rabbi Yoffie did not let up on his call for Israel to freeze all settlements immediately, regardless of what the Palestinians are doing. He is now also calling on American Jews to exert their political influence in the U.S. in order to make the American administration prompt Israel to do what it cannot do on its own.
“Continuing to build settlements is to threaten the Jewish character of the state and is to undermine the Zionist dream,” he argues fervently and adds that the goal of the settlement effort is to create a reality that is irreversible. “That’s what scares me most of all,” says Yoffie.
For Yoffie, the settlement issue is currently the most important issue on the agenda, because it is hastening the moment when the Jewish population across the Green Line will make the solution of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, no longer attainable. “My fear is that very soon, it is going to be too late,” he says adding, “Israel will need to choose between a democratic state with an Arab majority, or an apartheid state, and this is not what Zionism is about. We didn’t dream of Zion for 2000 years in order to be a minority in somebody else’s state.”
“We can no longer be silent”
Rabbi Yoffie was never considered a big fan of settlements and never hid his feelings about the issue. But over the last three years, since the start of the second intifada, he has been careful to refrain from explicitly opposing the government’s positions and from making statements that could be seen as criticism of Israel, which is in the midst of a terrorist onslaught . Yoffie acknowledges that he shares the disappointment of many American Jews with the Palestinians due to the terrorist attacks and the failure of the Camp David talks. After the outbreak of the intifada he even came out against his movement’s early adoption of the Oslo Accords.
But Yoffie also notes that, like many American Jews, he and the members of his movement are influenced by the actions of the opposition inside Israel. The opposition’s reawakening, be it the Geneva Understanding, the Ayalon-Nusseiba document or the declaration of former Shin Bet security service heads, which Yoffie carefully reads in the Hebrew press, to a large degree gave American Jews the okay to again make their voices heard. But more than anything else, he says, he feels that he can no longer stand by and remain silent when he believes that in another five years Israel will face a situation where a bi-national state will be the only possible solution. “The overwhelming importance of this issue dictates that we can no longer be silent,” he says.
Rabbi Yoffie does not make do only with speeches at Reform movement gatherings and press releases. In his opinion, the next step must be to enlist American Jews to change the situation regarding settlements – an effort that must that must move to the focus of power in Washington, D.C. “What we can do is share our concerns with our government and hope that our government will use its influence on the state of Israel to bring about a change in the settlement policy,” says Yoffie. He is not deterred by the criticism that by doing so he is basically asking for American pressure on Israel and stresses that this is pressure on one – in his view, existential – issue only, that is the settlement issue. “We would hope that as part of a broad policy of support of Israel and working for its peace, the U.S. would strongly urge Israel to stop the expansion of settlements, to freeze settlements and to dismantle illegal outposts,” says Yoffie.
Yoffie is not speaking only for himself. The entire Reform movement stands behind him, with its 900 affiliated synagogues across the U.S. and the 320,000 households. There are an estimated 1.5 million American Jews who are members of the Reform movement, which is the largest stream of Judaism in the U.S. However, the strength in those numbers has yet to be translated into significant domestic political power. While the leader of the largest stream of Judaism in the U.S. advocates asking the U.S. administration to pressure Israel to stop the settlements, the major organizations, including the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, are careful to express before Washington decision makers their unequivocal support of all of the Israeli government’s actions.
In the past Yoffie attempted to instill a more moderate line in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, but this effort was unsuccessful. Yoffie says he is not concerned about shattering American Jewry’s united front when it comes to the issue of Israel, because he is essentially the one representing the centrist stream, as the largest group in the U.S. “There is a clear majority of American Jewry that sees the settlement policy as a danger to Israel,” he says.
However Yoffie is not just shattering the united front of American Jewry, he is also risking a clash with the Israeli government. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Danny Ayalon, said in response to the Reform movement leader’s comments, that he respects and appreciates Rabbi Yoffie and the Reform movement, but at the same time “is deeply troubled and disappointed by his remarks.” According to Ayalon, there is no need to apply pressure on the government; rather, it is necessary to make sure that pressure is exerted on the Palestinians. “Rabbi Yoffie is mistaken and is misleading others and I would be glad to meet with him and clarify the matter for him,” says Ayalon.
Daily Torah study for Reform Jews
As usual in these situations, the question of American Jews’ right to criticize the Israeli government actions and work to change them arises. On this matter as well, Yoffie is unequivocal. “The notion that we are obliged to support particular policies, but are prohibited from addressing others is not one that I accept,” he says and adds that if American Jews are not allowed to influence the administration regarding the settlement issue, then they also may not use their influence with regard to financial aid to Israel, military aid and the political backing Israel receives from the U.S.
Criticism of the government also prompts criticism from American right-wing Orthodox Jewish activists and from the Israeli right. In response, Rabbi Yoffie says to them, “When the State of Israel, or whatever it will be called then, elects its first Arab prime minister, they are going to put up a monument to you in Jerusalem, or whatever they’ll call it,” in recognition of the fact that you enabled them to get to this point. He also argues that while he and his movement level specific and fair criticisms, the American Jewish right wing during Prime Minister Rabin’s tenure did not hesitate to support the most extreme organizations active in Israel.
The Jewish weekly, The Forward, which each year ranks the 50 most influential Jews in the U.S., last week ranked Rabbi Yoffie second on its list, right behind Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the chief planner of the war in Iraq. In other words, Yoffie is apparently the most important figure in the American Jewish establishment. The Forward referred to Yoffie as “the unchallenged leader of the country's largest synagogue movement” and stated that he was the most influential liberal voice in the Jewish community today.
Yoffie, 56, has headed the Reform movement since 1996 and during his tenure has launched some near revolutionary changes within it, starting with a move back toward Torah study and prayers and an emphasis on Jewish ritual that the Reform movement had in the past shifted away from. At the conference in Minneapolis this month, Yoffie also announced a new initiative, calling on every Jew to commit to at least ten minutes of Torah study daily. Rabbi Yoffie is also considered the main spokesman of Jewish political liberalism. He does not only voice his opinion on settlements, but also on domestic American issues such as the gap between the poor and the wealthy, social and economic issues, abortion and gun control.
There is another issue regarding which Rabbi Yoffie differs with the American Jewish establishment – his view of President George Bush. The Jews were not actually considered loyal constituents of Bush or the Republican Party, and even with the new tendency to favor Republicans, it is clear that most Jews will vote Democratic in 2004 as well. But in the last two years, Jews rarely criticized Bush directly. His unwavering support for the state of Israel and its government has transformed Bush into a favorite of the Jewish community.
Rabbi Yoffie is trying to contradict this approach. Yoffie stresses that he is not telling anyone how to vote, but he feels that the Jewish voter must also consider the impact of the Bush administration’s policy on domestic affairs. He notes that the current administration is widening the gaps in American society and that history shows that when the gaps between the poor and the wealthy increase, the Jews are the ones who suffer from it. “Israel is very important to us, but we can’t dismiss domestic issues,” he emphasizes.
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