The Black Hat Conservative Weekly Rant
By Yechezkel Moskowitz
Just as we thought the reform and conservative movements were on their last legs and gasping for air, the enamoration of Jewish youth with progressive liberalism - as a source to fill the void in their hearts has awaken these almost deceased kraken, and once again their tentacles spread forth for one last attempt at remaining relevant
Sometime during November 2012, Rabbi Evan Moffic (the spiritual leader of Reform Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Illinois) asked the following question, Can Reform Judaism Get its Mojo Back?
In his article, Moffic discussed how The Union for Reform Judaism pick of J Street and the New Israel Fund supporter Richard Jacobs as its president, was but a natural progression of the movement's attempt to remain relevant in modern times. According to Moffic, with the current demographics in the Jewish community - that is, alarming high birth rates in the orthodox community in contrast to an almost nonexistent birth rate in the reform community - "[Judaism] as a whole, cannot survive if there is no non-Orthodox movement to which American Jews can belong; in other words, survival depends on a strong Reform movement”.
Indeed, with increased growth and community engagement (with Beth Shira in Boca Raton as an example) it is rather obvious that the reform movement took Moffic's words to heart. However, one cannot help but wonder what exactly does the reform community have to offer these young impressionable youth, who've grown increasingly agnostic, and have very little to any interest in Judaism, or the state of Israel.
Taking a cue perhaps from the conclusions of a recent Millennial Impact Report - and as pointed out by Ryan Scott of the Huffington Post – the reform leadership realized that "Millennials are craving to feel connected to the social purpose of their [social structure], but if their peers and direct supervisors aren’t supportive, young [community members] may not have the encouragement they need to actually participate". In other words, if a community fails to engage its youth and be inviting in their language, it cannot expect an increase in communal involvement, however with relevant engagement participation is sure to follow.
And that is exactly what the reform community did.
With Social justice, diversity and globalism as the in-vogue viewpoint among secular American youth, it was only natural for the Reform movement to embrace these progressive liberal concepts as core values of the movement as a whole.
Through organizations such as T’ruah: The Rabbinical Call for Human Rights - an Anti Israel, pro BDS network of rabbis and cantors, 1,800 strong, - and If Not Now - a liberal progressive group using Jewish symbolism in its conquest for social justice - the Reform laymen and laywoman have made inroads to gathering the youth to their communities through engaged involvement and support for programs and slogans that have become synonymous with progressive liberal values, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ and BDS.
The influence of these lay leaders, have not remained confined to their reform communities respectively, as they've made affords to secure heavy funding for Anti Israel campus activity, thus allowing the reform community to inadvertently spread its tentacles into the college campuses scene as well...
It is no secret, that organizations such as J street U, If Not Now, Jewish Voice for Peace and many other Liberal progressive Jewish organizations for that matter, are funded by liberal progressive, anti Israel, reform sympathetic philanthropists. As exposed by Pamela Geller on Breitbart, the list includes, but is obviously not limited to, UJA-Federation President Alisa Doctoroff; Karen R. Adler, President of the Jewish Communal Fund and JCRC Board member; David Hochberg, Carole and Saul Zabar, Sally Gottesman, Edith Everett and others.
With increased levels of funding, the above mentioned organizations were able, and in most instances continue, to squash pro Israel voices on campus, and through bullying and intimidation, leave little options for impressionable young Jewish adults on campus and with little options, they are practically forced but to choose the Anti Israel, liberal progressive Jewish clubs for any future association and recreation or to dissociate themselves with Jewish campus activities at all.
The tragic case of Simeone Zimmermin - as spelled out by Natan Nestel, in his op-ed over at the Jerusalem Post, April 2016 - is just one example of the dangers that are currently present for Jewish Millennials on campus:
Simone Zimmerman, Bernie Sander's national Jewish outreach coordinator, created quite a stir after her year-old profane rant against PM Netanyahu recently became public. This led to her suspension from the campaign two days later. Her family and friends are baffled how Simone, who grew up in a Zionist home, attended a pro-Israel Jewish day school (about 10 percent of her class serve in the IDF), spent summers in Israel with her youth movement, and seemed destined to become a stalwart of the pro-Israel community, became so virulently anti-Israel. Simone arrived at UC-Berkeley in Fall 2009 as a pro-Israel enthusiast, active with AIPAC, who felt her “duty going out into the world is to defend Israel.” However, during her first-year Simone changed dramatically. At Berkeley, Simone frequented Hillel which presents itself as “home away from home.” There, she encountered Kesher Enoshi (KE), a Hillel group presenting programs demonizing Israel and the IDF. Kesher Enoshi had been collaborating with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the leading anti-Israel BDS campus group -- which happens to be on the ADL top 10 list of anti-Israel groups in America. The Hillel Director, Rabbi Naftalin-Kelman, [a conservative rabbi] supported and promoted Kesher Enoshi[!]
Reviewing a sampling of the toxic IDF/Israel-bashing programs presented by Hillel and Kesher Enoshi illuminates the transformation Simone, and numerous other students, underwent.
Obviously, Zimmerman is not a singular case, that can be dismissed simply as angry Jewish kid looking for some purpose. Per Natan Nestel:
Many students from pro-Israel homes, even those with Israeli parents, were co-opted and alienated from Israel at Hillel. Many, like Eyal Mazor, became BDS leaders. After graduating, Eyal joined two BDS groups: Code Pink, which disrupted Netanyahu’s speech at Congress and JVP, with Eyal as a key organizer, disrupted Netanyahu’s speech before the General Assembly of Jewish Federations in New Orleans.
Another, Gila Hashkes, the Israel Fellow (Jewish Agency emissary) at the Berkeley Hillel, who came from a national-religious home and was in the Bnei Akiva youth movement provides a tragic example. She was also impacted when serving under the Berkeley Hillel Director. Which after returning to Israel she went to Ramallah to console mothers of Palestinian terrorists. Later she married a Palestinian Muslim.
Rather than condone such madness and clean house, the Hillel leadership and “leaders” such as Daniel Sokatch [now the President of the New Israel Fund, former CEO of the SF Jewish Federation (which, under his leadership, funded the Rachel Corrie debacle co-sponsored by BDS groups], covered up the situation at Hillel, and enabled it to continue.
After its exposure, Hillel’s Kesher Enoshi at Berkeley morphed into J Street U. Simone Zimmerman became its leader and later the J Street U National President. After graduating, she helped found, and became a leader of, IfNotNow, a J Street offshoot that focuses on disrupting Jewish organizations and aiming to “transform the Jewish community.”
But with further research, one will find that it is not only at Berkeley where there’s a growing wave of anti-Israel sentiment within the Jewish Millennial community – led by the Jewish liberal progressive organizations. From Brandeis (where pro-Israel students were told that "Jews Hate Them") – to UCLA (where Avi Oved and associates were vilified for their supposed failure to denounce Islamophobia when they would not agree to sign an Anti-Israel petition co-written by Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine) and others, Jewish pro-Israel students on campus are experiencing countless acts of intimidation, the requisition of free speech, on a regular basis, with only very few cases ever getting reported.
What is more alarming is how these facts, are little known to those who are the self-appointed flag bearers of the "Hasbara" movement in America. Per reliable sources, Alan Dershowitz, who is very familiar and engaged with American Jewry, is quoted to having no clue regarding this dangerous situation - imagine that...
But while J-Street U and its offshoots are effectively poisoning of the minds of these Jewish students across the continent, it is rather clear their quest for conquest does not end on school campuses. Far from it. If this article in Haaretz is any indication (where J Street U students met with Barry Shrage, president of the Boston Jewish Federation, and persuaded his organization to distance itself from West Bank Jewish settlements and make clear that the occupation is an obstacle to peace with Palestinians), Liberal progressive Jewish millennials are planning to take their agenda nationwide - and bully anyone who stands in their way - all with the blessing of reform, and some conservative, community Rabbis...
Take for example a recent J Street U rally in Pershing Park in Washington, DC, where Along with three J Street U students, a prominent American Reform rabbi addressed the crowd, talking about the new challenges American Jews face under Trump, and offer accounts of the dangerous rise in anti-democratic trends in the United States and Israel.
Time to wake up and smell the coffee, it is not a coincidence that Barack Obama's Chanukah party was mired with many members of the - mainly Reform - anti-Israel pro BDS and BLM layman group, T’ruah...
Collaboration between J Street U and T'ruah are rather clear as its executive director, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, has gone on the J Street podcast numerous times to discuss the role of Jewish funding in the west bank - including in East Jerusalem – and what Jewish millennials can do to stop it.
As pointed out by Daniel Greenfield of Front Page Magazine, what makes T’ruah even worse than other Jewish liberal progressive organizations, is that instead of targeting companies, T'ruah actually goes after charities who provide funding for humanitarian projects in the West Bank – while using the guise of religion as a means of enticing young Millennials to their cause.
Just to put matters into perspective, Greenfield points out that one of the big wigs over at T'ruah is a character named Mordechai Liebling (a Reconstructionist), "who backed the Goldstone Report’s blood libel of Israel, participated in a “Fast for Gaza” and signed BDS letters calling on churches to divest from companies that do business with Israel".
Liebling’s BDS letters have appeared at Jewish Voice for Peace - which as I mentioned earlier, is radical group at the polar south of the anti-Israel spectrum – and is a rather close friend of JVP’s Rabbinical council includes Brian Walt, who is the acting Rabbi of the reform temple in Ithica, NY, and was the former Founding Executive Director of T’ruah/RHR-NA. Walt, isn’t the worlds righteous by any stretch of the imaginition, as he has gone on record to state that, "Political Zionism, at its core, is a discriminatory ethno-nationalism(!)” In other words, Walt believes that Zionism is not much different than National Socialism in its aspirations for sovereignty over the State of Israel, while maintaining a Jewish identity.
But the T'ruah connection and its desire for influence do not end with J Street, If Not Now, or Jewish Voice for Peace. With social media samplings of T’ruah layman (I reviewed over one hundred of them) one will find that T’ruah is constantly making inroads to reach more Jews (and even Christians) with its message, looking to ever increase its spheres of influence in the greater Jewish community.
The question that really needs to be asked is why is nothing really being done about this? Well if Dershowitz’s attitude is any indication, it’s that the Pro Israel - and even more so the Orthodox - community, have little to any knowledge about the severity of the issue, neither realizing the source of much of the incitement both on campus and beyond...
If the current actions of Liberal progressives across the country are indication, we can be assured that with their increase in power and influence, liberal progressive Jewish Ngo's will continue, with the blessing of the rabbis over at T'ruah, to use Jewish practices and symbolism as a means to further perpetrate their message of hate...
Only with a measured, and aggressive investment in better Hasbara to our youth, through the creation of better frameworks for young leadership programs in high school, collage campuses and beyond, rest be assured the future of the American Jew, the lover of Zion, is grim indeed.
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