[lbo-talk] MPug Rats Out Yoshie To Cooper

Joel Schalit managingeditor at tikkun.org
Wed May 3 10:33:31 PDT 2006


The main lesson I am learning from reading this thread about Yoshie's article is that it is extremely difficult it is to grasp the current political machinations of America's Jewish community. While I personally believe it makes little sense to draw conventional distinctions of working class versus "establishment" consciousness in the Jewish community - many "working" Jews tend to be highly conservative, and many "affluent" Jews also tend towards more liberal/ left orientations - (its important to remember Horkheimer's discussion of Jewish political consciousness as a product of being 'outsiders within the bourgeoisie' here) the seeming schizophrenia of the Reform movement's political priorities is symptomatic of a larger sea change in American Jewish politics as a whole.

In many respects, the Reform movement is trying to set a new ideological tone for the American Jewish religious community, and its largely a progressive one, depending on which side of the political fence you fall on. Nevertheless, it is symptomatic of a larger leftward shift in the community. In my view, what they're doing appears to be an attempt to supplant or displace the kind of neoconservative political orientations espoused by non-religious lobbying organizations like AIPAC on questions such as Israel and church/state issues in the US. In doing so, my sense is that Reform is doing a very traditional political dance, bouncing back and forth between its domestic and international priorities in awkward ways that may suggest its leadership is not in clear consensus about where to go next.

However, regarding domestic politics, its important to not underestimate the kinds of dialogue and relationships they're engaging in with the Evangelical community. Unlike AIPAC, the Reform movement (not to mention the ADL of all organizations) has come out swinging against the Christian right's political initiatives, expressing a deep found fear of the theocratic, racist politics expressed by the Religious Right,. While I remain without a final opinion on the Reform movement's prioritization of the Darfur issue over their activism around Iraq, its important to remember how concerns about genocide may be overriding every other current political concern for its leadership (that, I do not need to explain, clearly).

Though I am definitely not in favor of encouraging American military intervention in Darfur, I do think taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture about why such initiatives have been taken is definitely in order - if only from a progressive journalist perspective. This said, I do believe that its necessary to shoutout to the players that be that its important to politically question these moves, and despite the fact that Yoshie's article made me pretty uncomfortable (as an extremely secular Israeli Jew) it deserves credit for having raise an enormously interesting and important issue.

Joel

On May 3, 2006, at 8:25 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:


> On 5/4/06, Dennis Perrin <dperrin at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Yosh --
>>
>> > Well, "Jews" is not a dirty word, so I believe that it should be
>> > treated the same as "Blacks," "whites," "Asians," "Latinos,"
>> > "Americans," etc. A claim that "the Jews" have disproportionate
>> power
>> > is an odious anti-Semitic stereotype, but a claim that
>> establishment
>> > Jews have power over ordinary Jews (mainly the power to cow
>> them, by
>> > saying "Are you a self-hating Jew?" "Do you hate Israel?" etc.) in
>> > their communities to manufacture a semblance of consensus to serve
>> > imperialism, just as establishment Cubans, establishment Blacks,
>> > establishment whatever do, isn't.
>>
>> You don't have to sell me on this. I merely pointed out how your
>> wording
>> would be and has been taken by those who want to change the
>> subject and
>> slime you in the process.
>
> The thing is that any conceivable term ("official 'Jewish leaders,'"
> "Jewish elite," "upper-crust Jews," etc.) used instead of
> "establishment Jews" to criticize their class-specific politics would
> tick off those who are ticked off by my Darfur pieces. They willfully
> ignore the class marker and conflate "establishment Jews" with all
> Jews -- despite the fact that later in the piece I say, "Some say
> America is addicted to oil, but America is even more addicted to war
> (or economic sanctions when war is not in the cards). "Leaders" of
> almost all groups in America -- Republicans or Democrats, Christians
> or Jews or Muslims (many of whom rooted for the war in Afghanistan in
> the Carter-Reagan era and the war on Yugoslavia in the Clinton era),
> whatever -- come up with their own pet wars to promote, sooner or
> later," indicating that there is a general problem of use of
> ethnic/religious identity politics for imperialism, of which the "Save
> Darfur" campaign is but the latest example.
>
> A Jewish man by the name of David Kelsey posted a blog entry
> <http://jewschool.com/?p=10451> at Jewschool questioning the wisdom of
> Jews rather than Blacks and/or Muslims taking leadership of the "Save
> Darfur" campaign. Much of the discussion that followed is quite good,
> but, predictably, one person pipes up: "What a disgusting and shameful
> post, David Kelsey. Your arguments epitomize the case of someone who
> has internalized anti-Jewishness" (at
> <http://jewschool.com/?p=10451>). So, the choice boils down to either
> ignore the problem or raise it knowing that there will be some who
> would slime you.
>
> --
> Yoshie
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/>
> <http://mrzine.org>
> <http://monthlyreview.org/>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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