Several recent posts on MondoWeiss decry the fact that the overwhelming majority of attendees at the recent J Street conference were (horror of horrors!) Jews, or that they looked at the conflict through a distinctly (gasp!) Jewish prism and dared to discuss (how appalling!) Jewish values. Lynn Gottleib asks “do we really need another Jewish […]
Jewish identity
The kids are alright at J Street
It was Palestinian suffering that got me engaged with Israel and concerned about its future. I had attended Habonim camp and had grown up in an ardently Labor Zionist household. But when I was in my twenties, I didn’t have much to do with Israel until the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatilla […]
“Tough love†for Israel will be tough on the pro-Israel peace camp
A new Zogby International poll shows that 71 percent of Obama backers think the United States should “get tough with Israel” in order to stop settlement expansion, while 26 percent of McCain supporters feel that way. 80 percent of likely Obama voters also agreed with the statement, “It’s time for the United States to get […]
Sorry to disappoint you, conspiracy theorists: few Jewish voters are obsessed with Israel
A commentator with a brilliant nickname, “Agog,” was disturbed by the previous thread’s discussion of candidates’ positions on Israel. Agog asked: “Is that how you judge the merits of the respective candidates: who is best for Israel? Shouldn’t the criterion be who is best for the US? The two countries’ interests are not one and […]
For Zionists, the obsession with Jerusalem is a recent phenomenon
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations recently “reaffirmed its longstanding position that a united Jerusalem should remain the sovereign and eternal capital of Israel,” according to a JTA story. Some left-of-center groups were against it but they could not stem the tide. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the […]
Worth reading: “Reclaiming the Z Word” (i.e., Zionism)
On Sunday, I am going to argue that it is important to start answering the claims of educated anti-Zionists with cogent, calm and respectful arguments, rather than engaging in frenzied efforts to deny them platforms. In the meantime, the following essay by Chris MacDonald-Dennis on why he calls himself a Zionist is worth reading. It […]
Philip Weiss and the straw man of Jewish “separatism”
On April 1st, I remarked that a post by Philip Weiss had conveyed the far left’s discomfort with Jewish identity. Weiss’ response created so many straw men that it would take hours to torch them. But one of his ideological scarecrows deserves comment, because it is based on a notion of Jewish identity that is […]