In the weeks leading up to last Rosh Hashanah, the Anti-Defamation League, bowing to mounting pressure and a mini-revolt by its New England board, reversed its longstanding refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide.
Wary of offending Turkey — a close ally of Israel and the United States — the ADL had refused to say whether the term “genocide” should be applied to the World War I massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks. But on Aug. 21, 2007, the group’s national director, Abraham Foxman, switched gears, saying the “consequences” of the killings were “tantamount to genocide.”
The reversal capped a weeks-long standoff that began with a ragtag group of activists in Boston throwing down the gauntlet before one of the most formidable organizations in the Jewish world. Though the campaign began to lose steam as 5768 progressed, it set a tone that continued throughout much of the past Jewish year: upstart activists and new groups challenging the Jewish establishment on an ever-widening range of issues.
One organization getting attention in 5768 was J Street, a lobbying group and political action committee launched in April by some of the biggest names in the dovish pro-Israel community. The goal, according to the group’s executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, is to present an alternative to the pro-Israel giants, particularly AIPAC, in the halls of Congress.
In June, the group issued its first set of congressional endorsements, throwing support to one Republican and six Democrats, among them a blind New Jersey psychologist who is trying to become the first rabbi elected to Congress. It also urged the presidential candidates to wish Israel a happy 60th birthday by pledging to pursue a two-state solution if elected.
J Street also has challenged the Jewish community’s willingness to partner with evangelical Christian groups supportive of Israel, contending that those groups oppose any Israeli concessions, seeing them as violations of God’s will.
In July the group, in partnership with Democracy for America, delivered a 40,000-signature petition to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) urging him not to address the annual Washington-Israel summit of Christians United for Israel, the Christian Zionist group founded by Texas Pastor John Hagee.
Like the Armenian and Jewish activists who challenged the ADL, J Street finds itself playing David to AIPAC’s Goliath. The new group projected its annual budget at $1.5 million, compared to the roughly $50 million AIPAC spends, and its staff totals just four people. Still, organizers promised that the new group would play as tough as the big boys, buoyed by the belief that the majority of U.S. lawmakers support more intensive American involvement in the peace process and want to see more done to support Palestinian moderates but are afraid of the political consequences of speaking out.
Meanwhile, in New York, a grass-roots campaign from the other end of the political spectrum targeted a Barnard College anthropologist, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who was up for tenure. The campaign, led by a group of mostly Jewish Barnard alums, charged that Abu El-Haj was guilty of shoddy scholarship and harbored deep animosity toward the Jewish state. Her defenders countered that her views are consistent with those of many leading Israeli archaeologists and were twisted by her right-wing critics.
Barnard announced in early November that Abu El-Haj was granted tenure.
Early in 2008, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) found himself fending off a grass-roots campaign of a different sort when e-mails began to circulate claiming that the Democratic presidential contender is a Muslim, had attended a madrassah as a child in Indonesia and had been sworn into office on a Koran.
All three claims are false, as the media and a host of Jewish defenders were quick to point out. Obama’s father was a non-practicing Muslim and the Illinois senator embraced Christianity at Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, an association that would soon reveal a different set of liabilities.
In January, leaders of several of the largest American Jewish organizations — among them the United Jewish Communities, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, and the Reform and Orthodox congregational arms — took the unusual step of signing a letter refuting the rumors about Obama. Seven Jewish senators later signed a letter echoing the same theme.
“These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion,” the organizational leaders’ statement said. “We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.”
Still the charges, which continued to circulate widely during the primaries, raised doubts about Obama among some Jewish voters. One former Orthodox Jewish official, writing on his personal blog, speculated that Obama might be the Muslim version of a “pintele Yid” — a Yiddish expression describing someone who isn’t Jewishly identified but retains some unconscious attachment to his roots.
Eventually the lines of attack against Obama moved to more conventional ground, with Jewish critics focusing — whether fairly or accurately was a matter of debate — on his associates, positions and experience. But as recently as May, the New York Times was reporting that Jewish voters in the key swing state of Florida were still under false impressions about Obama — that he’s Muslim, a member of Chicago’s Palestinian community and was endorsed by al Qaida.
In primaries in several of the states with the largest Jewish populations, Obama lost out to his main Democratic opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. In New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Obama lost the Jewish vote by sizable margins. But he handily won among Jews in Connecticut, 61 percent to 38 percent, and lost only narrowly in California and Mass- achusetts despite losing those two states overall.
Several polls show Obama stalled at 60 percent of the Jewish vote in his general-election fight against his Republican foe, Arizona Sen. John McCain — a significant drop from the 75 to 80 percent enjoyed by recent Democratic standard-bearers — suggesting that the successive waves of grass-roots attacks against him may still be taking a toll.
For their part, the establishment organizations say they are the victims of smear campaigns as well — the ADL by the Armenian activists, AIPAC by its liberal critics and Hagee by those who portray him as a sexist and a homophobe.
That sort of back and forth — with both sides charging they are being unfairly tarred by their adversaries — also was characteristic of perhaps the biggest Jewish news story of the year: the controversy surrounding Agriprocessors, the largest kosher meat producer in the United States.
In May, federal authorities conducted the largest immigration raid in U.S. history at the company’s packing plant in Postville, Iowa, netting 389 illegal workers and prompting a flood of allegations against the company from former employees. In early September, several people — including the company’s owner, Brooklyn butcher Aaron Rubashkin — were charged with thousands of alleged child labor violations.
Rubashkin has denied wrongdoing while his defenders allege a witchhunt orchestrated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and abetted by liberal Jews and the media. The critics, meanwhile, say the company has a storied history of running afoul of government regulations and is out to maximize profits on the backs of immigrant laborers.
Both sides accuse the other of failing to live up to the high-minded ideals they espouse.
As the recriminations flew, the episode provided a boost to the Conservative movement’s upstart food certification, Hekhsher Tzedek, which aims to label kosher food that has been produced in an ethical and environmentally responsible manner.
The brainchild of a Conservative rabbi in Minnesota, Morris Allen, Hekhsher Tzedek represents the first attempt by non-Orthodox Jews to influence the exploding kosher food market. And while Allen insists his certification (guidelines were released in late July) is meant to coexist with existing certifications, established kosher agencies are casting a wary eye on his efforts.
“What does somehow trouble me a little is the fact that they are devoting all their efforts to kosher food companies,” said Rabbi Avrom Pollak, the president of Star-K, a kosher certifier that works with more than 1,500 manufacturers. “I think it should be a much broader effort. All the services that we use and buy should also be subject to the same scrutiny.”
Economic concerns have risen to the forefront of the Jewish agenda as 5768 draws to a close. In the wake of the March collapse of Bear Stearns, a major Wall Street bank and a significant source of Jewish charitable financing, philanthropy professionals worried that a continued slide in stock and real estate markets could force them to cut their allocations significantly.
“We’re going to find out who the strong and the weak were. It’s an almost Darwinian survival of the fittest,” said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University. “What does Warren Buffet say? It’s only when the tide goes out that you find out who’s swimming naked. We’ll only find out which Jewish institutions are severely undercapitalized if the recession deepens.”
Though the faltering economy is casting a long shadow in the waning days of 5768, the year was not without celebrations. One in particular provided a timely reminder that grass-roots challenges to authority have yielded some of American Jewry’s greatest moments.
In November, the community marked the 20th anniversary of the struggle for Soviet Jewry, a campaign that mobilized tens of thousands of Jews across the country on a scale unequaled before or since. What began as a student-led effort in the 1960s blossomed into a worldwide movement, leading to the largest Jewish exodus in history and, some say, playing a role in the ultimate fall of the Soviet Union.
Henry Feingold, the author of a recently published work on the struggle, summed it up thus: “It was probably American Jewry’s finest hour.”
The year: month by month
September 2007
• Michael Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew, is appointed United States attorney general by President Bush.
• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the United States. The Iranian president speaks at Columbia University in New York City, instigating mass protests by Jewish groups.
• Debbie Friedman begins teaching at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion cantorial school, heralding an official stamp of approval of her sing-along style of synagogue music.
October 2007
• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert faces his third investigation, this time into criminal allegations that he tried to advance the interests of a foreign investor during the privatization of Bank Leumi in 2005.
• The United Arab Emirates refuses to grant visas to Israelis to attend two conferences.
• Israel launches a high-profile diplomatic initiative to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This follows President Bush’s warning that a nuclear Iran could produce World War III. Israeli leaders travel to member countries of the U.N. Security Council.
• In response to Palestinian rocket attacks, Israel cuts power and fuel to the Gaza Strip.
• Seven of the eight Jewish members on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs vote in favor of a resolution recognizing the World War I-era Ottoman massacres of Armenians as genocide.
November 2007
• President Bush convenes the Annapolis summit. Bush, Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, along with leaders of the Arab League and the European Union, discuss how to jump-start Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations. The Maryland conference ends with the issuing of a joint statement by all parties, despite an underlying expression of differing goals by all sides.
December 2007
• The National Council of Jewish Women calls for the United States to withdraw from Iraq, becoming the second Jewish group to make the call.
• Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) endorses Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president.
• “The Torah: A Women’s Commentary,” a 14-year effort by Jewish female scholars and rabbis, is unveiled at the Union for Reform Judaism biennial.
January 2008
• President Bush visits Israel and affirms his ties to the Jewish state while urging a freeze on settlements. During a visit with Abbas, Bush also says he understands why Israel needs roadblocks as a protective measure.
• World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder writes a letter to Olmert urging him to allow diaspora Jews to have a say in decisions on Jerusalem’s future.
February 2008
• Israel decides to build a security fence to separate the Negev Desert and the Egyptian Sinai to prevent the passage of arms smugglers and terrorists.
• The Orthodox and Reform movements back legislation that would protect religious rights in the workplace.
• The Republican Jewish Coalition launches an ad campaign titled “I Used to be a Democrat,” to be placed in major Jewish newspapers across the United States.
March 2008
• The U.N. Security Council places a third round of sanctions on Iran that includes financial blacklisting and an expanded ban on selling technologies to the Islamic Republic that can be used for military purposes.
• Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, endorses Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for the presidency and becomes a Jewish surrogate in the Democratic primary battle.
• A terrorist attack on the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem leaves eight students dead. The shooter, who is killed by an off-duty soldier, is discovered to be a former driver for the yeshiva.
• The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passes a resolution strongly defending how Israel has repelled rocket attacks from Gaza.
• The collapse of the Wall Street giant Bear Stearns sends shock waves through the Jewish community, prompting concerns over layoffs and future philanthropy.
• Acrimony continues at U.C. Irvine when an off-campus Jewish group suggests the school is too anti-Semitic for Jewish students to attend — a charge hotly contested by the university’s Hillel and Jewish student groups. Later in the spring, Mark Yudoff becomes president of the $18 billion University of California system. Yudoff keeps a kosher home, lectures on Maimonides and is a vocal supporter of Israel.
• McCain, after becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, visits Israel on a congressional fact-finding mission and reaffirms his strong support for the country.
April 2008
• As Israel’s 60th anniversary events take place throughout the world, both houses of Congress unanimously congratulate Israel on its 60th anniversary.
• Former President Jimmy Carter meets a top Hamas representative, Khaled Meshaal, prompting condemnation from many corners.
• Ben-Ami Kadish, a former Army engineer, is accused of spying for Israel by the Justice Department. Kadish allegedly borrowed documents from an Army library in Dover, N.J., from 1979 to 1985 and shared them with the New York Israeli consulate’s science affairs consul.
• Pro-Israel doves launch J Street, an initiative to promote support in Congress for the peace process and moderate Palestinians.
• Yossi Harel, who brought 24,000 European Jewish Holocaust survivors to the shores of pre-state Israel, including on the Exodus, dies at the age of 90.
May 2008
• The kosher slaughterhouse Agri-processors is raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in what the federal government calls the biggest raid of undocumented workers. The raid spurs a litany of complaints by workers about conditions at the plant, and invigorates calls for ethical considerations in kashrut. Iowa authorities recommend charging the company with violating child labor laws.
• Ugandan Gershom Sizomu is ordained as a Conservative rabbi by American Jewish University, making him the first official rabbi of Uganda’s Abayudaya community.
• The governments of Israel and Syria announce they will resume peace talks brokered by Turkey.
June 2008
• Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain are among the featured speakers at the annual AIPAC policy conference. Olmert also speaks, urging a blockade of Iranian imports. Days after the conference, Clinton concedes the Democratic candidacy to Obama.
• A truce between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Egypt, is announced.
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits Israel, bolstering his desire to be a regional peace broker. Sarkozy is the first French president since Francois Mitterrand to speak at the Knesset.
• Hebrew College ordains its first class of 11 transdenominational rabbis.
July 2008
• Nine rabbinical students from the Chabad-Lubavitch Yeshiva of Warsaw become the first rabbis ordained in Poland since World War II.
• As part of a prisoner swap between Lebanon and Israel, the bodies of slain Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are returned to their families in exchange for five jailed Hezbollah terrorists. The freed terrorists receive a hero’s welcome in Lebanon.
• Olmert announces he will not run for re-election in the wake of numerous corruption charges and strong political opposition, though he maintains his innocence.
• Obama visits Israel, including the embattled southern city of Sderot, in an effort to shore up his foreign policy credentials and his image as a friend to Israel.
• The Conservative movement released its guidelines for a Hekhsher Tzedek kashrut certification, outlining the social justice standards companies must meet if their food is to qualify.
August 2008
• The McCain presidential campaign asks Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the only Jewish Republican member of the House of Representatives, to provide personal documents, leading to speculation that Cantor would be the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate.
• Mass Ethiopian aliyah of the Falash Mura ends after nearly five years of 300 new immigrants per month. However, advocates vow to continue to fight to bring an additional 8,700 Ethiopians.
• More than 200 Jewish residents flee fighting near the Georgian border, most from Gori, a city where Russian bombers destroyed several apartment blocks, according to the Jewish Agency.
• Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf resigns, leaving Jewish observers uneasy, as control of the world’s only nuclear-armed Muslim state is left up in the air.
September 2008
• Thousands of criminal charges — of all which concern alleged child labor violations — are filed against the owners of Agriprocesors.
• Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni beats Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz in the Kadima Party primary by fewer than 500 votes. She assumes Olmert’s post as party leader, and has less than two months to form a coalition or face a nationwide election for prime minister.