Out with the New, In with the Old (Rabbi Jacobs, Part 3)

Today the Union for Reform Judaism announced the formal election of Rabbi Rick Jacobs to head the URJ. The statement includes this passage:

As Rabbi Jacobs winds down his responsibilities with Westchester Reform Temple, he also will step down from his involvement in other organizations, boards and advisory committees during the first years of his Presidency in order to focus his energies on the task ahead of him. Additionally, as President of the URJ, he will assume many new official posts on Jewish communal organizations including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, among others.

So, Rabbi Jacobs has been instructed to quit all his frivolous dabbling in radical lefty politics. 

Out with the new - no more playing on J Street for Rabbi Jacobs;
In with the old - he will join a respectable club such as AIPAC


Out with the New Israel Fund;
in the with the old - The Jewish Agency.

Out with the new - no more edgy activism at Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations;
In with the  old - Rabbi Jacobs will join the list of approved organizations.

Rabbi Jacobs, part 2

Last month I did a post on incoming Reform movement head, Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Israel/Palestine. He was forced to back away from his previously held center-left positions (J Street) in deference to the APIAC pro-Israel camp.
In the last week, my blogppost has received a lot of traffic of folks coming over from Lizzy Ratner's piece on the same issue over at Mondoweiss.

I agree with Ratner that Rabbis Jacobs is a better candidate than previous leaders of the Reform movement, who gave their blessing and authorization to the colonization of the West Bank by Jewish settlers.

However, I have some problems with Ratner's piece. First, there is this gratuitous dig at Reform Judaism's attitude to women:

it [the Union for Reform Judaism] represents more Jews than any other branch of Judaism in the United States, and the man (because you can bet it’s always a man) who gets chosen to lead these members has no small influence.

It's true that the URJ has always been led by a man. On the other hand, the membership and clergy of the Reform movement reflect a deep commitment to full gender equality. Sensitivity to gender equality is reflected in the last two editions of the Reform prayerbook; women and girls are full equals in ritual; a majority of young cantors are women. Increasingly women rabbis are attaining senior toles in the movement.
Looking at the two Reform clergy associations, the immediate past-president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the current president of American Conference of Cantors are women.
Awareness of women's rights and issues is a defining concern of the Reform movement.
If a woman wasn't selected for the job, it is not because this is an old boys' club, but because we have moved so far forward on this that it is a non-issue in the Reform movement.

Second:

he was chosen to helm the URJ at least in part to offer a new kind of leadership, one that will reel the young folks back into the reform movement and give it a needed jolt. 

Lizzy Ratner does not offer any evidence for this. There are other reasons that can be put forward in its place, the most obvious has to do with the interests of an organization in guaranteeing its own future. Just because us folks who read Mondoweiss think about Israel/Palestine every day, it doesn't mean that this is on the front burner for the URJ leadership.

I would love to see the URJ extending its liberal politics on womens' rights, gay issues and other domestic social issues to progressive politics on Israel/Palestine. I agree with Ratner that this might give the Reform movement that elusive "relevance" that it supposedly lacks.

After his election, President Obama disappointed progressives when he moved to the political center. Similarly, the case of URJ President-elect Rabbi Rick Jacobs is instructive in reflecting what one has to sacrifice in order to hold a position of national leadership in the mainstream Jewish community.

After all is said and done, I still prefer a beaten-down progressive to a right-wing ideologue.

Good luck, Rabbi Jacobs!

Which Rabbi Jacobs Will Lead the Reform Movement?

Rabbi Richard Jacobs, President-Designate of the URJ

 The Jewish Reform movement has just started the transition to a new leader. In 2012, Rabbi Eric Yoffie is stepping down after 30 years in leadership roles in the Reform Movement. The process of introducing his successor,  Rabbi Rick Jacobs to the public has begun. One of Jacobs' first public appearances after the announcement was made was with Rabbi Yoffie was in DC last week. Speaking to Reform social justice activists he mounted a vigorous defense of his pro-Israel credentials. Rabbi Jacobs is a moderate. He has supported Rabbis for Human Rights, an activist group that does great work on behalf of Palestinian human rights. While he is a member of J Street's Rabbinic Cabinet, Rabbi Jacobs has aligned himself with Jewish Voice for Peace's position on BDS (economic sanctions and other measures). Namely, Rabbi Jacobs does not oppose BDS  against West Bank settlements.
His appointment to the head of the Reform movement is being hailed  - and attacked – as a victory for the  left-of-center J Street.
In this speech, however, Rabbi Jacobs goes out of his way to appease the right-wing. After coming under attack by the right wing,  he is now speaking with a different voice, answering Amen to the anti-Palestinian camp’s talking points.

Which of is two two public personas will Rabbi Jacobs bring to the URJ? The Rabbi Jacobs who supports BDS against or the one who supports the IDF's onslaught on Gaza?

 

I posted this response on The Forward website:

Rabbi Jacobs speaks of equality between Jew and Arab in Israel and speaks approvingly, if only in passing, of activism to dismantle settlements. These are important messages.

But these good points are, unfortunately, overshadowed by major sections of the speech.

Rabbi Jacobs speaks admiringly of Daniel Pipes, a man whose idea of reaching out to other faiths is expressed in statements such as "we should tolerate moderate Islam", and, in commenting on the peaceful, democratic revolution in Egypt said: "Muslims...at this time, they are the least democratic of peoples". Notwithstanding that one of the world's most populous democracies, is the Muslim country of Indonesia.

Where is Rabbi Jacobs' voice urging Reform Jews to reach out to American Muslims?

2. Rabbi Jacobs has nothing to say about Israel's shameful attack on the people of Gaza in 2008-9. He boasts that he anticipated the partisan retraction of one of the 13 serious war crime charges against Israel in the attack on Gaza in 2008-9. He implies that the retraction by a single member of the commission of just one finding is sufficient to invalidate the other 12 accusations of war crimes. Rabbi Jacobs surely knows that in our tradition, a da'at yachid, (a minority, dissenting opinion) does not decide the law.

Where is the Rabbi's moral concern for the horrendous destruction of civilian institutions and human life in the IDF's campaign in Gaza?

3. Rabbi Jacobs speaks approvingly of AIPAC and disparagingly of J Street. Jewish Voice for Peace is not mentioned in his speech on Israel.

Where is the "big tent" that the leader of the largest denomination in Judaism seeks to build?

Given such a partisan, political stance, Rabbi Kaplan's call for Reform Jews to disengage from Israel is understandable. However, this is less than optimal. A new generation of young American Jews is emerging who will not put aside their values in the name of loyalty the State of Israel. What will Rabbi Jacobs and Rabbi Kaplan tell them?

In the U.S. we have Palestinian and Arab neighbors. What message do we want to send them?

In the past the leadership of American Jewry gave the Israeli government the authority to bring settlements to the West Bank. Rabbi Yoffie has since retracted that support.

I wish Rabbi Jacobs well in his new position as leader of the Reform movement. There is still time, before he takes office next year, to go beyond narrow partisan politics and reach out to the broad, diverse spectrum of opinion that is American Reform Judaism.

I hope he does so.