Dan Kliman pulled off his belt and lashed it furiously against the table for dramatic effect.
“I wish you had never been born!” he screamed, his face reddening as he continued to whip the leather strap.
Others in the room squirmed as the Oakland physician drove his point home: that parents who yell at their children publicly in such a way actually do much more harm than good. And the same goes for when Jews publicly criticize Israel, Kliman maintained.
Kliman, a co-founder of S.F. Voice for Israel, was one of several at a forum addressing the topic of whether public criticism of Israel, specifically by Jews, ultimately hurts or helps the Jewish state. The recent discussion at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center was sponsored by Congregation Rodef Sholom’s Israel Action Committee, and it brought together strange bedfellows. Or, at the very least, people who probably had never before sat on the same panel.
Other panelists were Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council; Robyn Lundy, executive director of the Tikkun Community; and Sydney Levy, an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace.
Kahn went first, positing that Jews not having a unified voice during World War II had disastrous results. The JCRC was created in the aftermath of the Holocaust, he said, to ensure that in the future, Jews could at least speak from a consensus viewpoint. “We can be politically effective and active in a way that wasn’t possible before.”
Therefore, Jews should speak with a unified voice when it comes to Israel. Unfortunately, though, he said, many Jews do criticize Israel, and much of that criticism is irresponsible: The country’s actions are either taken out of context, or Israel is held to a different standard than other nations. “American support is so critical to Israel’s survival and sense of security, that if our support wavers, it could affect American support,” he asserted.
Lundy, who directs Tikkun Community, which is affiliated with Tikkun Magazine, said she is always most afraid when speaking to a room full of Jews about Israeli policies, because of the sensitivity to the subject.
Born and raised in apartheid South Africa, Lundy said that she grew up “seeing apathy and silence and the privilege that is coupled with oppression.”
Saying that she fully supported Israel’s right to exist in safety and security, she added, “If Jews want to look to a future where they coexist with their neighbors, then they can’t be moving them out of their countries or putting walls around them. That only generates more fear.”
Lundy ended by saying that if she heard her views being expressed by the JCRC she would be happy to agree with Kahn that Jews should speak with a unified voice, but that wasn’t her experience.
After Kliman’s demonstration in which he lashed out with his belt, he acknowledged that the Palestinians were suffering. Yet, he said, if Jews did not speak for Israel, no one else would.
Israel is a democracy that offers equal rights to its minorities, he said. “It’s not perfect, we all know that. But come to my neighborhood in Oakland and you’ll see worse.”
Kliman had especially harsh words for Jewish Voice for Peace, saying that by co-sponsoring events with the International Solidarity Movement, it is, in effect, a terrorist-support network. He called such Jews anti-Semites, comparing them to Jews for Jesus who call themselves Jews, but really are not. Jews have the right to criticize Israel privately, but not in public, as there are plenty of others to do that, he maintained.
Sydney Levy, a Venezuelan-born Jew of Egyptian descent who attended Hebrew University, took his belt off and set it on the table. Then, he rebuked Kliman for suggesting he was a terrorist and/or a Jew for Jesus.
He voiced his frustration that not one panelist mentioned the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the root of the problem, and as such, it needed to be criticized.
Levy said one only needed to look at the Web site of Haaretz, the Israeli daily, to see how self-critical a society it is.
As American citizens and as Jews, Levy said, “We have little influence over Israel and very little influence over the Palestinian Authority. But we have influence in America,” he said, and therefore, “must criticize Israel when we deem it necessary,” because “silence equals consent.”
Several of the panelists noted how rare this type of discussion was in the Jewish community, and audience members agreed.
But when it came to questions, Mo Shooer, a JVP activist, asked Kahn how the JCRC could claim to speak in a unified voice, when JVP’s application to sit on the JCRC was denied, or rather, “we were shut out from the dialogue,” as he put it.
Kahn responded that the JCRC was as large a tent as could be possible, and to allow voices that were as critical of Israel as JVP’s would cause it to collapse.
Levy then retorted, “Don’t let us in, but then don’t say that you speak for all of us.”