Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has been making headlines for weeks as he wins primary after primary across the U.S.
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Trump’s ostentatious disregard for the sensitivities of various religious and ethnic groups has hit a nerve among Jewish organizations, inspiring a barrage of denunciations from across the ideological spectrum.
Rabbis David Paskin and Jesse Olitzky are at the forefront of a campaign called “Come Together Against Hate”.
“At every turn, Mr. Trump has chosen to take the low road, sowing seeds of hatred and division in our body politic”, said the URJ while noting that it doesn’t endorse candidates.
Although supporters of AIPAC’s invitation to Trump defend his right to free speech, Ann Toback, executive director of the Workmen’s Circle, rejected that argument.
Paskin says the protesting rabbis are opposing “the ugliness that has engulfed this election season”.
“We invited the Senator and we gave him the same opportunity to speak as the other candidates”, an AIPAC official told JTA in an email “We understand that he very much wanted to come but could not get back from West Coast to do it. We did change our policy and no candidate was offered/permitted the opportunity to address the conference remotely this year”. Bernie Sanders Sanders said that he would be campaigning in the western half of the country and unable to attend the AIPAC conference. It is that simple. The Union for Reform Judaism also released a statement criticizing the Republican candidate’s language. That his incendiary speech and anti-immigrant rhetoric is a red line.
In his staunch commitment to advancing social justice, Sanders also clearly embraces this strand of American Jewish identity. “Well, my friends, Israel’s security is non-negotiable”. “But, you know…I’ve gotten more than two million votes more than anybody else”.
Sanders’s relative silence on Israel, therefore, serves as a reminder that Israel is not all that important to many, if not most, American Jews.
More than 1,700 people have joined the protest’s Facebook page in the last week, but Rabbi Paskin admits that many will not want to miss Trump’s speech – so the protest might not be as successful as he hopes.
The 2016 AIPAC Policy Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. from March 20-22.
“He’s tried to avoid the Israel-Palestine issue like the plague”, said Blumenthal. When the Palestinians announced they would petition the United Nations for statehood in 2011, AIPAC helped persuade 446 members of Congress to co-sponsor resolutions opposing the idea.
But when it comes to Israel, Sanders’s silence also reflects a political calculation.
“Obviously, issues impacting Israel and the Middle East are of utmost importance to me, to our country and to the world”, he said. And, as with other communities, comparisons of Trump to Hitler and Mussolini have clouded their impressions. First and foremost, that role is filled by AIPAC.
Are American-Jewish Reform and “Conservative” rabbis going off the deep end in a transparent attempt to support the Democratic candidates? American Jews should be dismayed by the fact that AIPAC isn’t an organization about values – certainly not their values.
“Our involvement in the political process remains the best way to advance alliance”, AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr explained as he opened the session, stressing the need for “building relationships with all candidates for federal office”.
Moreover, in a Gallup survey taken during Israel’s 2014 Gaza War, the majority of 18 to 29 year olds thought that Israel’s actions were unjustified, while the majority of those 50 and older regarded them as justified.
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The protests and organizers shouldn’t focus on Trump, but rather on AIPAC itself.
