About as close as Peter Beinart may ever get to Jewish Voice for Peace, were flyers posted throughout the Bay Area advertising his book promotion appearance at the East Bay Jewish Community Center (EBJCC) in Berkeley. The event was to have been co-sponsored by the JCC and KPFA, the local Pacifica radio station. The station, known for its leftist politics, sought out Dr. Penny Rosenwasser as moderator for the event. She was a founding member of the JVP national board and is a staff member of MECA, the group which sponsored the exhibition of Palestinian children’s art that the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art cancelled last year at the behest of angry Jewish community members, who felt the art was too disturbing and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
When more pro-Israel members of the East Bay Jewish Federation discovered that the JCC was hosting an event involving Rosenwasser, they began a campaign to stop it. They had a useful ally. The Koret Foundation is one of the leading Jewish funders in the region giving nearly $2-million in 2011 to the six local Jewish community centers alone. The Foundation, run by an arch-pro-Israelist, Tad Taube, has developed a set of pro-Israel funding guidelines that are unique among American federations. In fact, I’d call Taube and Koret the Koch Brothers of Jewish philanthropy.
When the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival held a screening of the film, Rachel, about the life of Rachel Corrie, despite the fierce opposition of Taube, he issued the following statement. It overshadows the Beinart cancellation:
As staunch champions and allies of Israel, the Koret and Taube Foundations do not support any organization that promotes or provokes anti-Israel sentiment; nor do we provide funding to any organization whose mission runs counter to our position. While we have made no decision regarding future funding of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, we take issue in particular with three egregious errors in its upcoming presentation of the film, “Rachel”:
- It is partnering with Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee, two virulently anti-Israel, anti-Semitic groups that support boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel. Both are closely associated with the International Solidarity Movement and other groups that aid and abet terror against the Jewish State. These groups cross the line for inclusion in the Jewish community.
Those who cavalierly fling Israel’s future into the grasp of those who would destroy it betray a mainstay of the mainstream Jewish community to support Israel and to counteract anti-Israel propaganda events, speakers and organizations.
Given the cancellation of the Oakland museum show hosted by Rosenwasser’s children’s group and the above statement consigning JVP to herem, it’s no surprise that the East Bay JCC would dump Beinart. Let’s look at a few other reasons why these Foundations can enforce such pro-Israel ideological discipline in the Bay Area. First, Koret had $445-million in assets in 2010 (the Taube Philanthropies had an additional $50-million), which would mean it gives away approximately $20-million per year in the local Jewish community.
According to its latest 990 report, Koret gave $70,000 (plus a $32,000 2009 gift) to the East Bay JCC in the past year. Though this was less than it gave to most other JCCs in the region, it was enough to make it recognize that it couldn’t afford the luxury of hosting an event including Penny Rosenwasser. Though $70,000 is small percentage of the EBJCC’s $2.8 annual budget, it cannot afford to offend such a mega-donor. Every JCC these days is thinking about a capital campaign or some initiative that requires funding. The fact that Koret is one of the go-to foundations in the local Jewish community makes every non-profit take a very deep breath before it risks doing anything that might offend.
Added to the Koret funding pressures these local groups face, the Oakland Jewish federation has at least one prominent donor and former board member who lobbied strongly against the Beinart event and has publicly voiced Islamophobic rhetoric. Max Blumenthal writes that Jonathan Wornick‘s Facebook page is replete with homicidal comments about Muslims:
“i’d shoot anyone anywhere if they were yelling allahu akbar!”
And this:
Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic, hateful, anti-democratic, ant-semetic [sic], and corrupt. We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL. Islam, if allowed will spread and destroy all Western values. In order to stop films like this we need to stop the spread of Islam. Period.”
He also urged his Facebook Friends to raise hell with the EBJCC and campaign against the event.
Given Wornick’s Muslim-hatred it’s hard to understand why he served in such a prestigious position in the local Jewish community. Aside from his wealth of course, generated from local real estate and restaurant ventures. It makes one understand that the East Bay Jewish community leadership appears to reward wealth over values.
I should make clear that if Tad Taube or Koret exerted any direct pressure on the JCC it was done quietly. But when you have $500-million in assets you don’t need to make a geshrei. Your grantees are like obedient puppies seeking to do your every wish. They don’t even need to hear their master’s voice. They don’t need to be told what to do. They know. Not to mention that Koret has attack dogs like Wornick who are working from the inside to enforce discipline, which allows them to keep their fingerprints off the evidence.
A further pernicious aspect of this pro-Israelist discourse being enforced on the Bay Area Jewish community is that it subsumes not just ideas and organizations, but individuals. First, Jewish Voice for Peace was deemed anti-Semitic and pro-terror. Then Penny Rosenwasser became treif. Who will be next? And has it come to this? That we must return to the 17th century and excommunicate the Baruch Spinozas among us who don’t toe the pro-Israel party line?
When the JCC withdrew from the event, Peter Beinart had two choices: he could cancel the event altogether or substitute another Jewish community sponsor. He chose to cancel. Instead of standing up for the principle of free speech in the community, he took the path of mollifying the powerful pro-Israel interests in the local community by in effect not violating the cherem they’ve erected around JVP and Penny Rosenwasser. If he had instead chosen to move the event to a new space, it would’ve generated a huge amount of media exposure and the sort of controversy that every media project dies for. Imagine how many more people would want to attend the talk and buy the book associated with such controversy. I understand that he wanted a Jewish sponsor (like the EBJCC) who opposed BDS to act as an ideological anchor, but I believe he could’ve done this with very little difficulty. There are liberal synagogues who would’ve been eager to step in. In fact, he still can.
Beinart must figure he’s generating enough controversy from the pro-Israel thought-police at Commentary, Jeffrey Goldberg and the like, that he didn’t want to court more.
The children’s art exhibit sponsored by MECA was cancelled at the behest of the J Federation of Oakland, probably I would guess at the behest of the “Koch” brothers, identified above. When I objected directly to the Federation for its actions, somebody emailed that one of the Palestinian works (by an 11 yr old) showed little Stars of David dropping from planes onto Gaza. He thought I would be sympathetic that this was an inflammatory piece to exhibit. Instead, I was awed by the imagery, a product of a budding artist. I wrote back that the picture strikes me as “promising” with regard to the artist and “apt” with respect to the meaning.
I provide this story because it was one of several experiences that brought me into a full awareness of Zionism and Israeli policies and practices, and the work of AIPAC, ADL, SWU and other toady organizations in the US. It was, in short, one of the things that radicalized my view of the whole I/P thing. I hope that this cancellation will open the eyes of other Jews about Israel and Zionism.
Incidentally, now I (and presumably others) know that the JCC’s are contaminated by right wing ideology up to their budgets.
The JCC didn’t cancel the event. They just withdrew their sponsorship.
The event could have gone on as scheduled without any change of venue. The venue was the Hillside Club, not the JCC.
Beinart himself canceled the event.
The formal cancellations and hosting hardly matter: It is sufficient to know that the ideology of a couple of donors can make policy for Jewish agencies ostensibly serving the interests of the entire Jewish community, etc.
It is all one piece now. A handful of wealthy Jews make policies for Jewish cultural and family institutions and probably make law and policies in Israel as well. The civil freedoms that Jews fought for, for themselves and others, over many decades and in many places are easily thwarted and stifled by a couple of billionaires. These agencies are simply bought out.
While I am bitter about these cancellations at the hands of extremist ideology, I am also a whole lot wiser as a result.
But don’t you think accuracy is important?
The JCC did not cancel the event even though this post says that it did.
Initially, the headline made that claim as well, but it has since been altered.
Within the body of the article, however, the incorrect information still stands.
Max Blumenthal, who wrote the initial piece that this blog post is largely culled from, made the same mistake initially as well but has since made a correction and crossed out the erroneous information in the original.
“Nit-picking” to divert from the issues or the main argument – one of Hasbara Central’s classic ploys.
Saying something comes from “Hasbara Central” is also a classic ploy to dismiss anyone or any argument/statement one doesn’t feel like addressing.
When someone posts something that is factually inaccurate they ought to be grateful for having it pointed out so the mistake can be corrected. No one who is concerned about maintaining journalistic integrity should have any problem apologizing and correcting the inaccurate info.
Max Blumenthal did so – why not here? A lot of people use this site as a resource for truthful information – these blog posts are re-posted widely around the internet and the author of the blog is extremely respected and admired. It serves no one’s interests to have erroneous information posted under his name.
If that’s “hasbara” then the definition of that term has been expanded so widely that it no longer has any meaning.
I do appreciate being corrected when I’m wrong, but it is a little dance though isn’t it, Bob? Find an error, point out the unreliability of the rest of the information here? You do it more subtly than others admittedly & I’d rather yr lighter touch than the ham fisted approach of others, but it’s still a bit of gotcha.
I would point out that I did not state or suggest that any of the other information of this post was inaccurate. There is no “gotcha” involved of any kind. I do not question anything about any other element of this article. And since you went ahead and made changes to reflect the corrected information, I would imagine you’d be somewhat appreciative of having the error pointed out in the respectful and straightforward manner in which I did so.
I was too harsh to you & apologize. I do appreciate the corrections.
There was one incorrect mention of the JCC cancelling in the 2nd fr last paragraph which I’ve corrected. But the fact is that when the JCC withdrew under political assault it in fact caused cancellation of the event.
I do not think that is true. There was absolutely no reason why Beinart could not have gone ahead with the event as scheduled. He made the decision to cancel because he was uncomfortable with the remaining sponsors.
One would think he would have been pleased to have this JCC group withdrawing its sponsorship considering the sorts of people they’ve had on its board as recently as last year.
In fact, if Beinart had participated in an event sponsored by such an organization, I would think he would’ve gotten some flak for it in light of what’s been highlighted about their board members and supporters in your post.
WOrnick was on the Oakland federation board, not the JCC board. But Wornick is a major figure in the entire Jewish East Bay community & known to the EBJCC. Beinart felt he needed the “cover” of a Jewish communal organization hostile toward full BDS in order to go forward. I believe he could’ve found such a group had he tried. But he wished not to cross the affiliated Jewish community & rile it up precisely when he could & should have.
Richard,
You should still correct the ‘move to a new venue’ part of the 2nd to last paragraph. The event was not to be at the JCC.
Further, you should also correct the statement that the “After the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival cancelled its screening of the film, Rachel.”
In fact the screenings went ahead, and Taube issued the quoted statement beforehand.
Also the cancelled exhibit at the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art was last year, not two years ago.
With all that said, I want to say that your ANALYSIS of the overall situation is correct and is not affected by these small factual corrections.
Thanks, I’ll make those corrections. Do you know if Koret stopped funding the Film Festival after the Rachel controversy?
Richard,
I don’t know exactly, but I do know that the festival lost significant funding. However, the main response of Koret (i.e. Taube) and their allies was to use the incident to impose the SFJCF guidelines that prevented the Film Festival from having any association with JVP (among others) or individuals that call for any kind of economic response to the occupation. (!!) They also proposed a scheme to stack the festival’s board with members that favored their politics, although I’m not sure to what degree that succeeded. (http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/40703/proposal-to-quell-the-rachel-fires-expand-the-size-of-sfjff-board/)
The festival’s ED Peter Stein left after last year’s festival. To say there has been a ‘chilling effect’ that will effect the festival’s programming in the future is an understatement.
I wonder if you’d know how I might contact Stein? Is he still in the Bay Area? Do you have a copy of the SFJCF guidelines as well?
These corrections are valuable of course. However, the meaning of the article is not much altered by the corrections. The meaning is what a writer provides. That’s the really important stuff.
RE: “Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic… We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL. Islam, if allowed will spread and destroy all Western values. ” ~ Jonathan Wornick, board member of the Oakland Jewish federation
FROM YNET NEWS – Rabbi Aviner: Women must not wear pants even when alone, by Neta Sela, 05/02/08
One of Religious Zionism’s most prominent leaders defines trousers as a ‘self-prohibition,’ says women ‘must dress modestly also when alone and in the
dark’
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3552461,00.htmlcles/0,7340,L-3552461,00.html
Did you know this guy, Rabbi Aviner is also an accused sex abuser? The charges are contested, but he’s definitely a bad ‘un.
RE: “Did you know this guy, Rabbi Aviner is also an accused sex abuser?” – R.S.
REPLY: “[T]he Holy one blessed be he is everywhere.”
P.S. To answer seriously, no. I recall reading quite some time ago about allegations of sex abuse made against an extremist Rabbi in the West Bank, but I am terrible with names and had not connected the two. Perhaps Aviner’s prohibiting women from wearing pants has less to do with “modesty”, and more to do with making certain that a particular part of the female anatomy is more easily accessible to “the Holy one blessed be he” and/or his designee!
You are very bad!!
RE: “You are very bad!!” ~ David
MY REPLY: Thanks immensely! “Practice makes perfect.” Consequently, I just keep getting badder and badder!
P.S. RE: “Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic, hateful, anti-democratic, ant-semetic [sic], and corrupt. We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL…” ~ Jonathan Wornick, board member of the Oakland Jewish federation
ALSO SEE: “The First Word: A day in Jerusalem”, By Yehudah Mirsky, Jerusalem Post, 05/07/09
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1239710892040&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
“Jonathan Wornick” is not listed as a board member of the Oakland Jewish Federation. ????
I was told that by a source and am checking it out. Thanks for researching this. I’ll let u know what I find.
He was a board member up until last year but is no longer.
Thanks for clarifying.
P.S. Between yesterday (when I posted the above Mirsky excerpt in a comment at Mondoweiss) and today, the entire 05/07/09 commentary by Yehudah Mirsky has been “disappeared” from the Jerusalem Post website. Israel really shares our values, NOT!
Nonetheless, I am truly flattered.
ANOTHER INTERESTING COMMENTARY BY MIRSKY: The Russian wave, By Yehudah Mirsky, Jerusalem Post, 05/07/09
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=222766
P.S. RE: “Between yesterday (when I posted the above Mirsky excerpt in a comment at Mondoweiss) and today, the entire 05/07/09 commentary by Yehudah Mirsky has been ‘disappeared’ from the Jerusalem Post website.” ~ me, above
CORRECTION: After reviewing my browser history for the last few days, it does not appear that I checked the link that I had for the article when I posted the excerpt yesterday at Mondoweiss (as is my customary practice). Consequently, since I copied the link several years ago when I originally excerpted the article, it is not really surprising that the old link is no longer good. I finally managed to find the article using Google and it now has a different http. Self-flattery be gone!
NEW LINK – http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=141545
Beinart advocates for Zionism+, created in actuality by Cyrus the Great, eh? He argues that there are two segments of Israel. A democratic portion (majority of Israel) and a non-democratic portion (settlements in West Bank, spectre of Gaza). When he speaks of Israel, he does not speak to it as a land of people in it (or a nation), but an idea that needs to capture land to take shape. He is not referring to Palestinians in the non-democratic portions. He prefers the two-state solution.
So allow me to change my moniker and play the devil’s advocate for a second. If Israel’s plan since 1948 and before was to capture land for what is basically a foreign financed colony exclusive of the indigenous people, then that is not Zionism+. Cyrus the Great created one land, autonomous so that people could pray how they wanted, tolerant so they could do it together – AND he got a Temple built.
If I wanted to do what Israel’s founders/planners did/are doing, I would have ceased fighting 20 or so years ago to start building inroads so that by now we would be building skyscrapers for new businesses in what is commonly acknowledged as the “Jewish” part of the Middle East. You see, the graciousness of technology and innovation becomes a useful tool for the party causing grievance. The 43 years before that were ample time for settling in.
Yet Israel was not gracious and arms remains Israel’s number one export besides pain, terror, grief, horror, hatred, violence, and trouble stopping any of the above while they insist they are the world’s love child. Humanity has never seen such psychological abuse.
And I am pretty sure that this “idea” of Israel already exists all throughout the world in the form of Jewish people. And the land exists too in the form of the whole state of Palestine. But Swiss-cheese Israel sits alone.
Good on you, Persian Advocate. Your analogy to Cyrus is apt.
Beinart is a hypocritical jerk about whom I have already written, but this blog will no longer publish my comments. Let’s see if this one passes.
Thanks, Richard. Here’s what I wrote:
Here is an interesting interview with Peter Beinart that appears in Haaretz this weekend (first link). I have already expressed my opinion of Beinart’s views in a letter that was published recently in NYTX following his article in the NYT (second link). From my own perspective, Beinart is dead wrong about the idea of saving liberal Zionism and working for a two-state solution. And his solidarity with J Street in this venture is, in my opinion, misplaced. J Street is merely AIPAC light, and is only a diversion from AIPAC’s neoconservative positions.
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/is-archliberal-peter-beinart-good-for-the-jews-1.420178
http://www.nytexaminer.com/2012/03/the-times-on-saving-israel-hawks-on-iran/
Agreed, Gene. Olmert spoke at J-Street and there were many reports of them refusing to join hands with Palestinians over the same cause. Controlled opposition is more I like it. Controlling the boundaries of any debate is a main pillar of the playbook.
like a kidney stone ;P lol
Yet another example of the mainstream Jewish community insisting on Zionism as an intrinsic component of a Jewish identity – to the extent of excommunication absent this criterion.
I find this interesting in view of the recent furor over Ali Abunimah, et.al.’s condemnation of Gilad Atmon for essentially stating the obvious: The mainstream Jewish community equates Zionism with Judaism. While numerous Arab authors flocked to Gilad’s defense, Jewish voices supporting him were notably absent.
RE: “Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic, hateful, anti-democratic, ant-semetic [sic], and corrupt. We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL…” ~ Jonathan Wornick, board member of the Oakland Jewish federation
FROM YNET NEWS (ISRAEL): “Jerusalem: Orthodox riot in protest of chastity squad arrest”, by Neta Sela, 08/26/08
Haredim burn garbage cans, block streets in protest of arrest of community member suspected of torching store that sells MP4 player. ‘Safeguarding Torah considered a crime in this country of Sodom and Gomorrha,’ they say
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3587654,00.html
These are the hypocrites who defend much of Israeli policies. I know the style.
RE: “Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic… We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL. Islam, if allowed will spread and destroy all Western values. ” ~ Jonathan Wornick, board member of the Oakland Jewish federation
SEE: ‘Modesty patrol’ suspected of spilling acid on teenage girl, By Neta Sela, Ynet News, 06/05/08
Religious tensions at boiling point in Beitar Illite as 14-year-old girl attacked by member of town’s ‘modesty guard’
(excerpts) A 14-year-old girl from Beitar Illite was taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem after an unknown person spilled acid on her face, legs and stomach, causing light burn wounds. The act has been attributed to a representative of the so-called ‘modesty guard’ in this town where religious and secular residents are increasingly at bitter odds.
MDA received the call just before midnight on Wednesday and paramedic Dror Eini who arrived on the scene to treat the girl also managed to calm her down enough so she could explain what had happened.
Eini told Ynet that “the modesty guards have been threatening her for quite some time.” According to the paramedic the focus of the threats has largely been the victim’s 18-year-old sister and some suspect the attacker mistook the younger girl’s identity for that of her older sister’s…
…An ultra-Orthodox teen from Beitar Illite who is in contact with the girl’s family spoke with her sister who described the incident. According to the boy, the attacker stopped the girl and first asked her for directions. Then, after confirming her surname, he spilled a bottle of acid on her…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3552461,00.html
RE: “Radical Islam, or, maybe all Islam is the problem. It’s a backward, misogynistic… We need to expose this to the western world and get people to realize that NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL. Islam, if allowed will spread and destroy all Western values. ” ~ Jonathan Wornick, board member of the Oakland Jewish federation
SEE: Ultra-Orthodox ‘Modesty Guard’ suspected of beating Jerusalem woman, By Haaretz Staff, 08/09/08
SOURCE – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009580.html
These are the people who should be imprisioned and denied the very basic means of life. As they deny freedom to others, they should have none.
Not sure if you have heard this: Should American Jews Boycott West Bank Settlements?
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149391369/should-american-jews-boycott-west-bank-settlements?ft=1&f=1001