Earl Schorris wrote a wonderful book a few decades ago called Jews Without Mercy. It was a savage, incantatory attack in the era of Reagan on the Jews who first advanced neoconservatism and brought it to a wider audience. I thought of his evocative title when conceiving this blog post about the response of some Jews both in America and Israel to the moral, societal and political challenges of our age.
There has always been a tension between universalism and particularity in our tradition going back to the prophets, if not earlier. One pole in Jewish thought reaches out to the world and seeks to engage with it, influence it, make it better. The opposite pole closes in on itself, cares only for the fate and welfare of Jews, argues that turning outward has only brought Jews suffering. That pole says that Jews can only depend on themselves; and that we may only look outward for the aid of a non-Jew to the extent he can advance our own particular Jewish interests.
Jewish neo-conservatives both in Israel and the U.S. embraced the latter position. You’ll remember that Irving Kristol, one of the fathers of neoconservatism, memorably said that “a neoconservative is a liberal who’s been mugged by reality.” Meir Kahane was an extreme version of this position. He was a neocon with guns.
No, Seattle is not dying…
Today, with the ascension of Donald Trump, a certain class of Jews advances the same set of cruel, insular values. Just as the GOP and its media darlings at FoxNews have transformed immigrants into the whipping boy to advance their agenda; just as they’ve churned up a hysterical fear of refugees and foreigners, these same forces have set upon the homeless as another scourge supposedly threatening our cities and our American Way of Life.
In Seattle, we’ve seen that with the anti-homeless movement organized around the group, Safe Seattle. It played a key role in the infamous TV documentary, Seattle is Dying? produced for the local Sinclair affiliate, KOMO. Safe Seattle and its leaders were prominently featured in it and they painted a similar apocalyptic vision to the one portrayed by Trump in his Inaugural Address. Remember “American Carnage?”
…The crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
The TV documentary painted a dark foreboding picture of Seattle as urban wasteland. A city taken over by thugs bent on violence. A city trashed and abandoned to its own fate. This is, of course, a false portrait. Seattle is nowhere near dying. While there is a major problem of homelessness, the homeless are not our enemies. They are victims abandoned by society. They require services, housing and treatment rather than harsh justice.
In truth, if anything is killing Seattle it is the runaway growth promoted by Bezos and other corporate titans expanding their businesses here. Tens of thousands of jobs beckon to young people fresh out of college seeking to join the tech March of Progress. There is not enough housing, not enough infrastructure, not enough mass transit, not enough schools to support this massive surge. As a result, the quality of life here suffers. New York City: be glad you stood up to Amazon. Beware of mega-corporations bearing “gifts.”
Tough-guy Ari Hoffman (2nd from right) standing guard with Israeli-style commandos at gates of Bikur Cholim synagogue.
Much like Trump wants to rid America of immigrants, and the Euro-right wants to rid its lands of Muslim refugees, and Israel wants to rid itself of both African refugees and Palestinians, Seattle anti-homeless movement wants to rid the city of the homeless. Rather, it wants to make the city safe for Big Business, the techies drawn here for Amazon and Microsoft jobs, and the rest of us white folk.
Ari Hoffman: Seattle City Council Candidate and a Jew Without Mercy
One of the leaders of this local initiative is Ari Hoffman, who’s running for a City Council seat in District 2 (Seward Park and South Seattle). Hoffman is an Orthodox Jew and militantly pro-Israel. He is a real estate developer, whose father-in-law, another wealthy developer, Larry Russak, is rumored to have bought his business for him. Russak is the president of the main Orthodox Ashkenazi synagogue in Seward Park, Bikur Cholim. Russak was responsible for ousting the synagogue’s distinguished Rabbi Moshe Kletenik just as he began a term as president of the national Orthodox rabbinical association. A synagogue member wrote that the rabbi had penalized him for violating Jewish law and refused him the honor of blowing the shofar on the High Holidays. A slight Russak supposedly never forgave.
Among the frauds Hoffman has perpetrated is to invent a homeless murder that never happened. He also made a 911 call falsely accusing a potential constituent of stealing yard signs.
This is Safe Seattle’s city council candidate, Ari Hoffman, trying to bolster his campaign by spreading a completely false story about a homeless, drug addicted, axe murderer cutting off people’s heads. This is disqualifying, and Hoffman should end his campaign immediately. pic.twitter.com/6vylPgK63M
— Spek (@spekulation) March 11, 2019
In addition to his anti-homeless activism, he runs the local Orthodox Jewish youth group, NCSY. The organization runs more than 100 such clubs at public high schools throughout the country, including five in Seattle. These after-school organizations draw non-Orthodox Jewish youth, who are fed a diet of pro-Israel propaganda sponsored by organizations like StandWithUs. Hoffman is fond of Praeger University videos, which portray Israel as beset by menacing Arabs seeking its destruction. Hoffman offers students free Orthodox-sponsored trips to Israel and also recruits them to study Torah with him. These are all known missionary strategies (known as kiruv in Hebrew) used by Orthodox Jews to convert secular and non-Orthodox Jews to Orthodoxy. When I criticized Hoffman for these practices directed at my son, he responded with insults and invective. Later, he tweeted that I was depriving Jewish youth of doughnuts!
Recently, Hoffman promoted the claim that neo-Nazis on 8chan had threatened his life because he flew an Israeli flag in front of his house. Though I don’t know whether the claim is true or not, the origin of the report was the Islamophobic media NGO, MEMRI. The organization is not known for veracity or credibility of its claims. The Stranger reports that the FBI said it was aware of reports about the threats, but it did not pass judgment on their credibility.
The current Seattle City Council election is being fought between pro-business and progressive candidates. The corporate candidates are funded by a $1-million campaign orchestrated by the Chamber of Commerce. $200,000 of that million comes from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. The billionaire has little interest in making the city a better place for the poor or the downtrodden. His company raised a fit when the Council unanimously passed a $250 corporate “head tax” that would have raised $75-million to fund homeless programs including housing.
When Bezos and the mayor warned the council they would fight them tooth and nail in coming elections, seven of the council member backtracked and rescinded the tax. Since then, Amazon has done nothing to support homelessness, while Microsoft, by contrast, announced a major $500-million housing initiative. It also did not fight the head tax (though it did not support it either).
Curiously, the Chamber is not giving any of its war-chest to Ari Hoffman. Instead, it is giving $80,000 to another candidate, Mark Solomon. To give you an idea of how significant such a gift is: the leading progressive candidate in District 2, Tammy Morales, has raised a total of $80,000 from small donors giving under $250. Morales is not taking corporate gifts.
District 3 features avowed socialist incumbent, Kshama Sawant, who is fighting for a second term. The Chamber views her as its bete noir. She is Public Enemy Number 1. Ousting her is Priority Number One. It is giving $110,000 to opponent, Egon Orion, the leader of PrideFest. Interestingly, last May Orion told The Stranger newspaper that he would refuse any endorsement from the Chamber. Something must have changed in the meantime, and Orion doesn’t seem eager to explain his change of heart.
The Holocaust, the Homeless and Refugees
Recently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has likened the immigration detention facilities on the Mexican border to concentration camps. The GOP was in high dudgeon and accused her of misusing the Holocaust. The U.S. Holocaust Museum released an unfortunate statement rejecting “any analogies between the Holocaust and other events.” Thankfully, a group of 600 Holocaust scholars took the Museum to task and rejected its statement.
To view the Holocaust as a unique historical event that happened to Jews and is thereby “owned” by Jews alone, is a falsification of history and reality. In truth, human beings have engaged in genocide since the species began. The main difference is that the Nazis turned genocide into industrial production, a mass-killing machine.
We must not permit the creation of Holocaust exceptionalism. If we do, then Jews and their suffering will be cut-off from the rest of the human race. We will claim a distinction no one else can claim. We will be outside humanity instead of within it.
Of course, Trump’s detention camps, with their wretched conditions, and with children torn from their parents, are appropriate for such comparisons. If you examine the political rhetoric used by Trump and his allies to portray immigrants, it mirrors precisely the language used by the Nazis to describe Jews in the 1930s and later.
We are not yet to the point where we are willing to kill immigrants as the Nazis eventually systematically killed Jews. But without intense, outspoken opposition, such things could happen in future. We are not immune.
Similarly, the language used by Hoffman and his allies in Safe Seattle echoes the rhetoric used by Trump to describe immigrants: they are dirty, violent, criminal, rapists, etc. They are subhuman. They are alien. They don’t belong here among a civilized community. For both Hoffman and Trump, the vulnerable are a suitable political punching bag they can use for their own gain. Neither wants to address the problem in any substantive way except to banish them completely from their respective environs. Neither offers plans or programs to ameliorate suffering.
Finally, Trump’s July 4th Lincoln Memorial speech was eminently forgettable. But the greatest irony was that Abraham Lincoln, before whose statue he spoke, presided over largest expansion of American democracy in our history. He emancipated the slaves, then enfranchised them. This was the largest influx of new voters the country had ever seen since the country was founded. Though the death of Reconstruction denied these newly freed individuals their vote, eventually the country restored it in the 20th century.
It is criminal that Trump’s Republicans, the party of Lincoln, seek to deny African-American progeny of these slaves their right to vote. They can’t return to Jim Crow because the country would rise up in revolt. But voter suppression and gerrymandering can diminish the voting power of American minorities, thereby subtly denying them the power of their votes.
As Jews, we have seen the erosion of democratic rights in Germany, gradually leading to the Holocaust. We cannot let such things happen again. That’s why we must resist the Ari Hoffmans and Donald Trumps of the world.
I urge you to support Tammy Morales and Kshama Sawant‘s election campaigns.
Excellent, thoughtful contribution.
Richard – I urge you to change the title of your article “Jews Without Mercy in Seattle and Washington DC”. It can create antisemitism though it isn’t your intention.
@ Judy Green: I don’t think you understand what this blog and I are about. Anti-Semitism is NOT a major problem facing world Jewry. And much of the anti-Semitism that exists is fed by Israeli attacks on Arabs states and Muslims. Further, anti-Semitism is also fueled by people like Donald Trump. It is not my responsibility to protect Ari Hoffman or Israel from the full force of their own hatreds.
Doing my best to make sure he gets voted in. Fact an antisemitic loser like you says people shouldnb’t is good enough for me!
@David Lange: you have as much impact in this eiection as a Flea on an elephant. in fact your meddling will cost him votes because unlike in Beit Shemesh, people in Seattle hate hoaxers like you. They also hate foreigners trying to influence our domestic affairs. Something you meddlesome Israelis do regularly.
My fake brother you invented and misdoxxed sends his regards by the way.
Ari Hoffman can’t get elected dog catcher in Seattle. But if he makes Aliyah he’ll probably get elected PM.
Richard said:
” Russak was responsible for ousting the synagogue’s distinguished Rabbi Moshe Kletenik ”
Having read the comments to the link you provided at,
https://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2012/07/former-rca-head-forced-out-at-shul-567.html,
I come away with the feeling that Rabbi Kletenik’s relationship with the Board and the congregation was complex.
Your claim that Russak was responsible for ousting Rabbi Kletenik seems simplistic, to say the least.
@,P Spot: unlike you, I read much more than the Failed Messiah report. I read accounts even less flattering about Russak’s behavior than that. My overall judgement is based on my comprehensive research.
Thank you for the rundown on Seattle politics vis a vis some orthodox Jews, and more widely, your well put words about “universalism versus particularity”. Though it pertains to Jews for sure, here and in Israel, it has a broader application, especially noticeable now here in Trump time.The monsters are out of the closet. Humans divide like this it seems. Now no political correctness or hiding true feelings, ones that reject universal values.I just cannot understand the disconnect (and corruption) within the major monotheistic religions unless religion itself, is subject to being universalist or particularist embracing both.So it seems. My prejudice is that the universalist is the more evolved and the particularist is an abuse and negation of what Joseph Campbell talked about: the “perennial philosophy”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy
Richard said: “My overall judgement is based on my comprehensive research.”
Was Russak ‘mechalel shabbos’ for driving in a car on shabbat, or, as is claimed, Russak was involved in one incident, shabbos post 9/11 when he was on a intercontinental jet flight his way home?
That’s a big difference, depending on who you believe. What did your research reveal?
@ P SPot: Gee, unlike you I trust Rabbi Kletenik’s judgement on this matter. He determined that Russak violated Shabbat when he didn’t have to. As a result he deprived him of a great honor because he felt that Russak had betrayed halacha and his high status in the community. I’m with the good rabbi and you’re with a egotistical, power-hungry Jewish fatcat. That says all we need to know.
You are done in this thread.
No Richard, Ari Hoffman did not ‘invent a homeless murder that never happened’.
What Hoffman really did was to share a partially false social media post that was posted by an anonymous tipster; which mistake Hoffman has owned up to.
https://patch.com/washington/seattle/seattle-council-candidate-backs-false-homeless-murder-story
BTW, I believe Hoffman’s efforts to prevent desecration of a Seattle Jewish cemetery by homeless people is laudable, same as I believe Hoffman’s fundraising for a ‘jobs for homeless’ program called ‘Millionair Club’ is laudable as well.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-cemeteries-hire-guards-after-homeless-camp-complaints/281-557737314
How can a Jew who raises money to help find jobs for the homeless be a ‘Jew without mercy’?
I was taught that the highest form of tzedakah is to help someone find a job or set them up in business.
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256321/jewish/Eight-Degrees-of-Giving.htm
Richard. You also told David Lange that the people of Seattle, “..also hate foreigners trying to influence our domestic affairs”
Richard aren’t you a foreigner trying to influence the domestic affairs of the State of Israel?
@ P Spot:
“Partially false?” Was there a headless body of a murder victim or not? No, there wasn’t. It was entirely a hoax.
Was the hoax perpetrated anonymously, as you claim? Not really. Ari himself credited Safe Seattle, an organization that is his chief base and support, with the story. So for all I know Hoffman and Safe Seattle could easily have been in cahoots about creating the hoax from the get-go.
Unlike you, I believe Ari Hoffman and everything he stands for is a hoax. So I don’t even know for a fact that a cemetery is being desecrated. But even if it is, the solution is to spend money on housing, job training, and substance abuse treatment for the homeless. Tell me how much money he’s raised for that. Or how much he’s advocated being spent on that. What’s that you say? None. Hmm, damn. How’s that possible.
Ari Hoffamn is finding jobs for the homeless? How many jobs? Who precisely did he find jobs for?
It is typical of you to quote Chabad as if it is the arbiter of everything Jewish. Chabad is repulsive. At any rate, the highest form of tzedakah according to Rambam’s principles is charity given anonymously. Nothing Ari Hoffman does is anonymous. Giving tzedakh and demanding credit for it or promoting your good deed is actually one of the lowest forms of charity. Look it up…
David Lange is an Australian-Israeli attempting to influence a U.S. municipal election. I am a Jew who’s devoted myself to chronicling Israeli affairs. Last I checked, Jews were encouraged to express their concern and dedication to Israel. Zionists have spent decades seeking Diaspora Jewish input and support for their cause. You mean to say a Jew whose views you don’t like is treif. But a Diaspora Jew whose views you like is kosher? Hmm, what’s wrong with this picture?
Further, I have never advocated Israelis vote for any particular candidate or party. Unlike Lange. Finally, Lange is a liar and a fraud. He wakes up in the morning and the first thing he thinks of is how he can propagate another hoax on behalf of his disgusting goals. I don’t lie. I don’t propagate hoaxes.
I am glad that Lange is trying to help Hoffman’s campaign. They are both charlatans and neither will fool Seattle voters. They will be repulsed by both of them and their shenanigans.
Richard – I still believe that ‘zionists without mercy’ is more appropriate.
@ Judy Green: Earl Shorris wrote the book and he didn’t title it “Zionists Without Mercy.” He titled it Jews Without Mercy, and specifically it was meant as a dichotomy between Jewish neocons and Jewish ethical tradition. So “Jews” it is.
With all due respect, I write the blog. I always say when someone recommends that I write something differently than I have, that they give this a shot themselves. You clearly have ideas of what should or should not be said. Rather than tell me uninvited what I should be doing, do it yourself.
” At any rate, the highest form of tzedakah according to Rambam’s principles is charity given anonymously”
You are wrong, it is the second according to the Rambam:
מַעֲלָה גְּדוֹלָה שֶׁאֵין לְמַעְלָה מִמֶּנָּה זֶה הַמַּחֲזִיק בְּיַד יִשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁמָּךְ וְנוֹתֵן לוֹ מַתָּנָה אוֹ הַלְוָאָה אוֹ עוֹשֶׂה עִמּוֹ שֻׁתָּפוּת אוֹ מַמְצִיא לוֹ מְלָאכָה כְּדֵי לְחַזֵּק אֶת יָדוֹ עַד שֶׁלֹּא יִצְטָרֵךְ לַבְּרִיּוֹת לִשְׁאל. וְעַל זֶה נֶאֱמַר (ויקרא כה-לה) “וְהֶחֱזַקְתָּ בּוֹ גֵּר וְתוֹשָׁב וָחַי עִמָּךְ” כְּלוֹמַר הַחֲזֵק בּוֹ עַד שֶׁלֹּא יִפּל וְיִצְטָרֵךְ:
@ avram: My familiarity with Rambam’s principles of tzedakah go back a few decades. Looks like I was rusty.
But Hoffman’s tzedakah is nothing like what Rambam envisioned. He claims to give jobs to the homeless. We don’t know who he’s given jobs to, how many people he’s given jobs to, what he asks them to do, whether and how much he pays them. Not to mention that he’s publicly bragged about this so-called act of charity. This certainly violates Rambam’s other principles dictating that the best, highest forms of charity are anonymous. There is nothing anonymous about Hoffman. He is a grandstander, braggart, and publicity seeker. Those are not Jewish values.
As for Chabad, it is one of the worst, most reactionary, most intolerant forms of Judaism and I do not find it worthy of crediting in any way, shape, or form.
@Richard
“Ari Hoffman is finding jobs for the homeless? How many jobs? Who precisely did he find jobs for?”
Since your asked, Richard, Ari Hoffman gives homeless people jobs working for his own companies.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2294549984148379
And earlier this year, Hoffman staged “Inflatacon 2019,” a fundraiser for Mary’s Place, which provides family shelters.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/controversial-jewish-seattle-city-council-candidate-gets-online-death-threats/
@P Spot: You didn’t answer my question. How many jobs has he created? For whom? How long have they lasted in his employment?
I also asked and you conveniently neglected to answer how much housing has he built as a real estste developer for the homeless? You know the abswer;: none. How much has he donated to substance abuse, job training or housing for the homeless?
You are done in this thread.
As for Mary’s place: how much did he raise? Compared to the tens of millions he and his father in law are worth?
I sent you a post correcting your post on charity and you did not post it. So it seems now you are מגלה פנים בתורה לא כהלכתה.
Have you no principles?
And BTW I always ‘surf’ via a VPN as I work in a ‘sensitive’ area.
@ avram: I have no idea what “post on charity” you’re talking about since you sent no link. Nor did you use either this handle or e mail address when you posted whatever you posted. So I can go back and try to find whatever you’re talking about. For someone who works in a “sensitive area” you’re not terribly sophisticated at these things.
I read every comment posted and if I thought your “correction” was relevant, pertinent or useful I assure you I would’ve published it. I publish many such comments and acknowledge corrections when warranted. Presumably, yours was not.
The fact that you’re in essence calling me a bad Jew doesn’t surprise me at all.
You criticized P Spot for him using Chabad as a source{as if it matters} and you told him to look it up in the Rambam.
He stated the highest level of charity is to give a person work or a loan not charity and you said it was to give anonymously which is actually the number 2 level. I included the Hebrew from the Rambam in the post.
You should correct that.
@ avram: I don’t know why this happened, but my spam filter caught several comments it shouldn’t have. Those comments go into a spam queue I rarely review. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I’ve responded to your original comment and published it. Sorry for the confusion.
@Richard
@avram
Richard. If you had bothered to listen to the video links I provided, you would know that Ari Hoffman gave three (3) homeless people jobs working for his company. These three (3) workers came recommended to Hoffman by the Millionair Club, a Seattle organization that helps the homeless.
You’re taking a swipe at Hoffman for not donating anonymously is unfair.
Firstly, you don’t know what Hoffman does anonymously, and second, Hoffman is ‘publicly bragging’ about how GOOD his homeless workers are! How the homeless workers he’s hired outperform the other workers in his hire.
Speaking publicly about homeless charities like Mary’s Place and Millionaire Club is not bragging, it is publicity, given in order to get the word out about the good works these charities do, and to induce businessmen to hire the homeless and to get ordinary folk to donate to these worthy charities.
Bobo out.
@ P Spot: First, I told you you were done in this thread. You ignored me. Don’t do that again. You have one grace ‘period’ here after such disregard. The next time, there will be no grace.
Holy moly! There are tens of thousands of homeless people in Seattle and he gave THREE whole jobs! For that, Rambam would be proud. In fact, he’d hold up Ari Hoffman as an avatar of tzedakah.
As for what Hoffman does, anonymously or otherwise, I know. He doesn’t do anything anonymously. Would Donald Trump do charity anonymously? No. In fact, he wouldn’t do it at all. And Hoffman is not much better. As for Hoffman bragging about how hard his homeless workers work, I bet a few Southern slave owners said the same about their “darkies” (their word, not mine). Do you realize how paternalitic you and Hoffman sound?
Don’t ignore me next time I tell you you are done in this thread.