Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Some time ago I discovered what at the time I found to be a compelling progressive Jewish blog, JSpot. It is the blog voice of Jewish Funds for Justice, a philathropic fund that supports domestic social justice causes. I once helped produce a JFJ Ronnie Gilbert-Si Kahn concert and fundraiser back in the days when Si was the national chair of JFJ. When I was married in 1998, we asked our guests to contribute to JFJ in lieu of gifts. So I go back a ways with JFJ.

A political blogger is always looking for ways to promote their writing and one of those ways is for like-minded blogs to cross-promote each other through links. I’d had a blog link for JSpot from the first time I read the blog. I wrote to Mik Moore, who writes JSpot asking if he’d consider linking to Tikun Olam. In reply, I received a polite, but nonetheless frustrating answer:

Thanks so much for your support. I would love to return the favor but unfortunately I cannot. jspot has a strict policy of not linking to blogs primarily about Israel, regardless of their politics. This is because Jewish Funds for Justice, which runs jspot, is solely focused on domestic issues and thus its programs maintain a similar discipline.

I am personally a fan of your site, among others (eg: muzzlewatch, MJ Rosenberg on TPM). I know it can be frustrating when a site does not reciprocate links, so I beg your indulgence.

To which I replied:

Do you mean to tell me that DovBear & Jewschool are not primarily about Israel? My blog is as much about Israel as theirs. My blog deals quite often with Judaism, spiritual issues, human rights, & domestic policy. And I don’t like being pigeonholded as a “primarily about Israel” blog.

I don’t want to argue or beg. But I find yr explanation, while convincing to you, not persuasive to me. Whoever said that a blogroll had to maintain a litmus test for inclusion?

I never received a reply to that e mail. I recently wrote again to Moore asking if JSpot maintained the same policy. He never wrote back. I should also add that there a number of other blogs included in JSpot’s blogroll which blog about Israel.

I find this an incredibly schizophrenic approach to Jewish life. Because the Israeli-Arab conflict is so contentious, you attempt to bifurcate Jewish life into domestic and foreign realms. If you can keep that Israel-linked contentiousness out of JFJ’s domestic work, then I suppose the idea is that you can attract a broad array of Jewish donors who have widely divergent views of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

In a certain way, I can understand the thinking here (without agreeing with it). I don’t quarrel with JFJ conducting itself in a way that most promotes its organizational goals. But to believe that if JSpot links to Muzzlewatch or Tikun Olam that this will somehow fragment JFJ’s work or endanger its donor base is ludicrous to me. Besides, it smacks of a split Jewish personality.

So I urge Jewish progressives to note that when they read JSpot, vote in Jewish blogging awards, or consider supporting Jewish Fund for Justice. We all have to prioritize our time and our philanthropy. I choose to devote mine to those Jewish efforts which are the broadest, most open and most inclusive; ones that don’t create artificial barriers where there don’t need to be any.