Tag: American Jews

On almost every issue on the agenda, most Israelis think, one thing and vote, the opposite. 81% of the Jews in Israel support equality for all streams in Judaism and 60% of the Israelis support an easier conversion process. Some 50% of those who define themselves as religious support civil marriage while half of those defined as Orthodox support a core curriculum in all Orthodox learning institutions. But it seems that on primary issues, before we bring up the political controversy, surveys referred to here, do reflect public opinion reliably, since multiple surveys were done by multiple pollsters. Only 10% support annexation of the West Bank according to the Institute of Nations Security Studies (INSS). Even considering sampling errors, The conclusion must be that there is a large gap between the positions of the right-wing coalition, which is now and may continue to be in power, and the majority of the public. Tomorrow the Israeli public will vote. Some surveys, show that the attitudes of Israeli Arabs are much more moderate than those of the Arab political parties. It turns out that both Arabs and Jews treat their parties a bit like a soccer team. When Israelis, Arabs and Jews, vote according to their true positions, common interests will prevail.

From the president’s checks to a resolution against hate, it’s been a busy week in American politics. Six such checks were provided to The Times, showing that the president was managing affairs of state while, allegedly, paying to keep his personal secrets out of the public eye. Mr. Cohen gave documents to the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that he said backed up his claim that Mr. Trump’s lawyers helped to shape false testimony he delivered to Congress in 2017. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee sent requests for information to 81 agencies, individuals and entities tied to Mr. Trump on Monday, opening a broad inquiry into possible obstruction, corruption and abuse of power. Mr. Trump signaled that he did not intend to cooperate with the requests, calling the investigation a “disgrace to our country.” Additional Reading • House Democrats Are Flooding Trump World With Demands. Representative Ilhan Omar again came under scrutiny for comments about Israel, after asking why it was “O.K. But a generational debate ensued between older Democrats in the House leadership and their young, more liberal counterparts, many of whom said Ms. Omar was being unfairly singled out. After much back and forth, the resolution became one condemning “hateful expressions of intolerance” against “African-Americans, Native Americans, and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, immigrants and others.” It passed by a 407-to-23 vote on Thursday. Some join the 2020 race, others opt out (and one can’t decide). But Mr. Biden, who would give the Democratic field a clear front-runner, has yet to make a final decision.

NEW YORK (JTA) — An American Orthodox Jewish group is defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to work with a far-right political party. It is the first statement by a major American Jewish organization defending Netanyahu’s decision. Last week, Netanyahu orchestrated an agreement between the extremist Jewish Power and Jewish Home, a religious Zionist party. “We understand what Prime Minister Netanyahu did, and he did it to have ministers of the national religious and national union parties in his coalition.” The statement stands in contrast to an alphabet soup of major Jewish groups that have condemned Jewish Power — from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to the American Jewish Committee to the Anti-Defamation League. “You have to take into consideration all of the ramifications and all of the concerns.” With Netanyahu’s intervention, Jewish Home agreed to include on its slate in April’s elections Michael Ben-Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir, self-professed followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of the Palestinians from territories controlled by Israel and a near theocratic state of the Jews. Netanyahu would need the support of successful right-wing parties in addition to his own Likud to form a government. The Young Israel statement likened Netanyahu’s decision to the 1993 vote on the so-called Oslo II accords, when a left-wing government relied on votes from Arab-Israeli political parties to secure passage of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. That argument echoes one made Saturday by Netanyahu himself on Twitter. The ZOA statement did not discuss the actual positions of Jewish Power, except to say at one point that its critics were engaging in “Nazi-name-calling against Jewish candidates.” “It is also mystifying that these Jewish-American groups condemned Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for encouraging small right-wing Israeli parties to merge, so that Israeli voters on the right are not disenfranchised,” the ZOA statement reads, telling other American Jewish groups to “direct their condemnation to those who oppose the State of Israel, and are truly racist and reprehensible, and a danger to the Jewish people and the Jewish State.” The Young Israel statement also contrasts with statements condemning Jewish Power from the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements. RCA responded that it doesn’t comment on Israeli politics.

Donald Trump will travel to Pittsburgh on Tuesday to mourn victims of the synagogue massacre, the White House press secretary has announced at a rare and acrimonious official briefing. He said the city did not have enough public safety officials “to provide enough protection at the funerals and to be able, at the same time, to draw attention away to a potential presidential visit”. The White House announcement also came despite an open letter to the president from the leaders of a Jewish group in Pittsburgh saying Trump was not welcome there until he publicly states opposition to white nationalism. Despite these factors, at a tense White House press briefing Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday afternoon that the president intends to make the trip along with his wife, Melania Trump, to express the support of the American people and grieve with the local community. “The president cherishes the American Jewish community for everything it stands for and contributes to our country,” Sanders said. This was only the second one in October, whereas the president has been holding informal question and answer sessions regularly as he campaigns for the midterm elections. Asked why the president has been attacking the media instead of uniting the country, Sanders said testily: “The very first thing that the president did was condemn the attacks, both in Pittsburgh and in the pipe bombs. The very first thing the media did was blame the president and make him responsible for these ridiculous acts.” She added: “It’s outrageous that that would be the very first reaction of so many people across this country.” Cesar Sayoc is charged with federal crimes after being apprehended last week in the mail bomb plot against leading Democrats and cable TV company CNN, all of which have been targets of Trump’s rhetoric. Jim Acosta, the chief White House correspondent at CNN, asked Sanders if the term “enemy” should be reserved for people “who are actually the enemy of the United States rather than journalists”. The spokeswoman replied: “The president is not referencing all media, he’s talking about the growing amount of fake news that exists in the country, and the president’s calling that out.” Acosta asked Sanders which outlets she and Trump regard as enemies of the American people.

To the Editor: Re “New Wave of Democrats Tests the Party’s Blanket Support for Israel” (news article, Oct. 8): While focusing on a handful of Democratic candidates who have faced heavy right-wing criticism for their positions on Israel, your article misses the larger evolution in American politics on the issue. Instead of relying on the outdated idea that support for Israelis and Palestinians must be mutually exclusive, a growing majority of Democratic candidates increasingly recognize that it is possible and necessary to promote policies, like the two-state solution, that benefit both peoples. We need leaders who will move past these tired dichotomies, which have only undermined United States efforts to secure Middle East peace. To the Editor: Thank you for covering the increasing support for Palestinian rights among American politicians. A growing number of Jews — especially young Jews — oppose Israeli policies and support B.D.S. (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), the Palestinian-led civil society movement pressing Israel to respect Palestinian rights. My organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, has long criticized Israeli policies and American support to Israel. We endorsed the B.D.S. call in 2015, and have only grown in size since taking that step: We have more than 15,000 dues-paying members, 70 chapters nationally and more than 250,000 online supporters. can no longer be ignored, nor can the Jewish community be simplified as a monolithic group.