The invitation came in the mail, and Joe Alouf was appalled.
“I can’t believe I’m reading this,” said the Israeli-born Alouf, a member of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El. “I can’t believe my temple, with my dues, is inviting this guy.”
“This guy” refers to Shamai Leibowitz, a highly controversial Israeli attorney who was invited by Emanu-El’s senior rabbi, Stephen Pearce, to speak at the synagogue last week.
The event may be over but the backlash that ensued is not. Criticism of Pearce is coming from many quarters, including from some members of Emanu-El and the consul general of Israel. They maintain that by inviting Leibowitz, Pearce used the city’s — if not the region’s — most influential pulpit to promote an extremist agenda, one that can only be considered anti-Israel.
The controversy that followed Leibowitz’s appearance has many wondering: Should Israel be above any criticism during the current Mideast conflict? And should the Jewish community speak in only one voice?
Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council, said that offering a wide range of perspectives within the mainstream is perfectly legitimate.
However, Leibowitz does not fall into the mainstream. He is a so-called “refusenik,” one of 467 Israeli reservists who have refused to serve in the territories on the grounds that it is morally unacceptable to do so — and, on top of that, he represents several refuseniks in court.
“The Israeli reservists who have refused to serve represent about one-tenth of one-percent of all reservists,” said Kahn. “That is 400 out of 400,000, and they’ve gotten disproportionate attention. They are quite a marginal phenomenon in Israeli society.”
Kahn added, “I have great respect for Rabbi Pearce and Temple Emanu-El and great respect for members of our community who are very upset by the appearance by this individual. Now that this event is behind us, I hope that everyone can move forward to continue to develop the strongest possible pro-Israel advocacy effort that our community can build.”
Pearce is definitely of a different mindset. In his column in the Emanu-El bulletin, he said that by inviting Leibowitz, he aimed to offer a differing view from “the official party line that defends the actions of the Sharon government.”
In so doing, he said, he was only following the talmudic tradition of offering minority viewpoints.
Pearce said he understood that the Mideast crisis is a highly emotional and charged issue, and that for many people, “any view that differs from the official position of the Jewish community is seen to be betrayal in some way.”
Nevertheless, he said, the Jewish community should not be afraid to engage in such debate; in fact, it should be encouraged.
“This discussion is one that the Jewish community should be proud of, that we can have differences of opinions and air them. Then, based on knowledge, we can decide where we want to be.”
Furthermore, Gary Cohn, executive director of Emanu-El, made the point that Leibowitz was just one of many speakers to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past year. Many of them took positions that would be contrary to Leibowitz’s.
Pearce informed Emanu-El’s board that he was bringing a highly controversial speaker, and gave board members an article Leibowitz had written. He even went so far as to alert the board that people would be angry with him.
In his writings, Leibowitz has called Israel “a terrorist state,” and has said that the Israel Defense Force routinely commits war crimes in its treatment of the Palestinians.
“They unanimously said, ‘Go ahead with it,'” said Pearce.
Barbara Rosenberg, another Emanu-El congregant, felt Pearce did not prepare the board adequately.
“The material was given to them right at the meeting,” she said. “With material like that, where the board needs to reflect on something of that import, it needs to have that information ahead of time.”
Pearce said that according to Emanu-El policy the rabbi has complete discretion over issuing invitations to speakers. But in light of Leibowitz’s views, he did warn the board as well as the entire congregation ahead of time, including in his column in the synagogue bulletin.
Once word got out that Leibowitz was coming, however, some congregants sprang into action.
Alouf said he did not object to Leibowitz solely because of his views; he would have the same objections to a supporter of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated transferring all the Arabs out of Israel as well as the territories.
However, he believes the place where he attends Shabbat services and where his children attend preschool has no business entering the world of extremist politics.
“I don’t believe my temple should be a platform for these extremist political views,” he said.
Alouf said he spent about three workdays organizing people to call and insist that Pearce add a more moderate voice to counterbalance Leibowitz.
His efforts paid off. While another of Emanu-El’s rabbis, Sydney Mintz, called Consul General Yossi Amrani to see whether he was available, Pearce reached KGO host John Rothmann, who agreed to appear with Leibowitz.
The grandson of the late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who was among the first to believe that Israel’s conquering the West Bank and Gaza Strip would lead to trouble, the younger Leibowitz is no less controversial a figure.
Approximately 250 people attended his June 2 talk. During it, he said that for the Palestinians to negotiate while under occupation is similar to “a rape victim being asked to negotiate with her attacker.” He also said that the Palestinians’ position vis-a-vis negotiations was like “being occupied in one’s own house, while forced to bargain over the status of the living room.”
While those present felt Rothmann did a fine job in adding a sense of balance, the consul general himself was still not too pleased at the outcome.
But rather than complain to Pearce or anyone else at Emanu-El, he aired his complaints at a Jewish Community Federation Women’s Alliance event on June 5, where he was the keynote speaker.
Amrani’s criticism of Emanu-El was not a part of his prepared speech, he said; it came later, in a question and answer period, when someone in the audience asked something along the lines of how she could do more to support Israel.
Amrani said his answer was the same as what he always says, that now is not the time to allow politics to get in the way of supporting the beleaguered Jewish state.
As has happened before in the Bay Area, Amrani said it was puzzling to him that at an educational event about Israel, the original intent was to present only the voice of one extremist.
“This is a time for solidarity and for people to unite,” he said, “not a time for internal community politics.” While Amrani did not remember exactly what he said to the women, he said it was along the lines of “it is a time for leadership, I brought Emanu-El up as a place where we need to see leadership.” The consul general urged audience members to voice their concerns to Pearce.
Furthermore, Amrani added, with all due respect to Rothmann, he is not Israeli. The consul general implied that as the official voice of Israel in the region, he should have been asked to appear with Leibowitz.
When word of Amrani’s criticisms of Emanu-El’s leadership filtered back to the synagogue, its president, Ann Lazarus, fired off a letter to the consul general.
“We understand that there can be disagreements in the community,” said Lazarus. “But they should be handled privately. We did not feel it was appropriate to air his complaints in a public forum without talking to anyone at Emanu-El first.”
Lazarus further noted that to suggest Emanu-El was anything other than supportive of Israel was simply wrong. At the same time, she said, “we have an obligation to present forums and speakers on a variety of viewpoints, and if [the consul general] were to disagree with that, those feelings should be expressed personally and directly and he did not do that.”
Alouf, however, said many congregants disapproved of Pearce’s invitation to Leibowitz “and are outraged by what happened.”
Yet Cohn, the synagogue’s executive director, estimated that 30 to 40 congregants — out of 3,500 — had complained to him about Leibowitz’s appearance. “When you are a large institution, no matter what you do, you will have members disagree with different things.”
While the issue of trying to fire Pearce was raised among some congregants, no one seems to be seriously beginning that process.
“I don’t need him to be fired,” said Alouf, whose goal is ensuring that such an incident does not happen again.
“I want the largest congregation in the Pacific Northwest to open their eyes and say a temple like this that represents Reform Judaism is not a place where extreme political views should be given a platform, especially when we have innocent Israelis dying every single day.”
But when asked whether Pearce would invite such a speaker again, he said he absolutely would.
“The reality is, for many Jews it is ‘Israel right or wrong,’ and I understand that,” said Pearce. “Nothing rational can appeal to them, and there’s no way to explain to those people the value of having a speaker like this.”