“Hi, my name is Eugene. I’m with the Democratic National Committee, and we’re working to defeat George Bush and elect John Kerry and other Democrats in November.”
I can’t count how many thousands of times I have said that. If you live in Los Angeles, you have heard that line either from me or from someone I have trained.
In the last six months, having hired, trained, and organized a small army of kids with clipboards, I helped build and maintain a canvassing office for the DNC that has raised over 1.2 million dollars. After the fundraising, we flew to Florida and drove Democrats to the polls.
I am 21 years old and am, by no means, an exception. There are hundreds of me in cities like New York, Boston, Cleveland, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver and Milwaukee.
The list goes on. All of us stood on the front lines of this campaign; we manned the swift boats, so to speak.
Hip urbanites, who had already given thousands to MoveOn.org, gave me contributions of $500. Eighty year-old lifelong democrats, who swore this was the most important election ever, gave me contributions of $10.
An Iraq war veteran, who was about my age, gave me $40. He then showed me the scar on his throat where the shrapnel tore through.
All these people, and hundreds like them, saw fit to give money to me, a complete stranger at their door, because of what I represented.
To these supporters, my presence on their doorstep — when not a nuisance — was a sign of hope. It was the same type of hope my father felt as he sat on a train from Moscow to Vienna, where a plane would eventually take him, his wife, and his son to America.
My own exodus was from a country that was isolated and militaristic to one that was strong at home and respected in the world. Fifteen years ago, my family immigrated to John Kerry’s America, not to George W. Bush’s.
Kerry ran on hope and he lost. Nov. 2 showed that Americans would rather be secure in mediocrity, than chance prosperity.
Rather than choose a president who could have been great, 58 million Americans chose one who would be, at best, tolerable and, at worst, horrifying.
Because of hope, I fought as hard as I ever had for a man I never met. He will never thank me, nor will he know how much I devoted myself to make him the most powerful person in the world.
I suppose now my cohorts and I join the throngs of beleaguered political activists. John Kerry is my generation’s George McGovern, a fact that I sincerely hope does not result in the discouragement of an entire generation of activists, whose tremendous potential may one day herald an era of progressive change in this country.
Milwaukeean Eugene Morgulis, a senior at Brandeis University, took a leave of absence to work on the John F. Kerry presidential election campaign. He was assistant director of grassroots organizing in Los Angeles .
Messy, high-stakes fight over judiciary looms
By James D. Besser
The National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) gets it, and so does the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Both groups have made careful scrutiny of the Bush administration’s judicial nominations a top priority in the past year.
Groups on the religious right get it, as well. Almost nothing President George W. Bush does during his about-to-begin second term will affect the American future as profoundly as his appointments to the courts.
Already, Bush has appointed more than 200 conservative federal judges. Now, with Chief Justice William Rehnquist ailing and several other Supreme Court justices talking about retirement, most observers expect two to four High Court openings in the next four years.
The issue has enormous importance to the Jewish community, but traditional communal caution may keep Jewish organizations — with those two exceptions — on the sidelines. And that could ultimately compound the damage done to key Jewish community concerns.
Last week’s election represented a political coming-of-age for the Christian right, which turned out in force to ensure Bush’s reelection and to help elect a more conservative Congress.
Now, those groups expect payback. Increasingly, what they want most are more conservative judges who share their perspective on the culture wars.
They understand this fundamental truth: while legislation can change day-to-day political realities, the courts, the Supreme Court in particular, change the very fabric of American democracy.
It is difficult to pass legislation to implement priorities like public funding for religious education and social services, curbs on abortion and restrictions on homosexual rights. Such measures always involve compromises infuriating to the purists.
Legislation, too, can be undone by future Congresses when the political pendulum swings back.
By a thread
But a transformed federal judiciary can affect policy in a much more powerful and enduring fashion. Rehnquist, appointed by President Richard Nixon in 1971, has influenced American life for 32 years, under seven chief executives.
Congress often lurches off in new directions when elections alter the partisan balance. The Supreme Court sometimes reverses course, but ponderously — as the Founding Fathers intended.
Conservatives know this, which is why they plan to press their advantage. The results could be dramatic.
When lawmakers balked at Bush’s sweeping faith-based initiatives, he simply implemented sweeping programs to funnel government money to private charities through executive action.
Many of those programs are being contested in federal courts, where the president’s conservative appeals court judges will hear some of the cases. A Supreme Court with a few new Bush appointees could turn those programs into permanent reality for America.
Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, hangs by a judicial thread. One or two new Bush appointees to the Supreme Court will almost certainly snap it.
The current court, narrowly divided, has moved cautiously in allowing government money to go to parochial schools — favored by Orthodox groups and opposed by most other Jewish organizations. Bush appointees could help the court throw that caution to the wind.
Christian groups have limited their activism on behalf of school prayer in recent years because of restrictive High Court rulings. Already there is talk in evangelical circles about new school prayer proposals to take advantage of the expected changes in the court.
Christian conservatives say that the biggest threat to the nation now is gay marriage.
They fully expect a new court — possibly headed by Justice Clarence Thomas — to slam the door firmly shut on such partnerships.
If they succeed, it will be the nation’s first major retreat after decades of progress on civil rights, a troubling development for other minorities.
Hate crimes statutes, favored by a range of Jewish groups, have been under assault from the religious right and could also be in jeopardy.
The conservatives accuse the courts of “judicial activism” — doing from the bench what Congress and legislatures have been reluctant to do. But that’s exactly what they want to do from a conservative Christian starting point. Judicial tyranny, apparently, is in the eyes of the beholder.
Jewish groups have a huge stake in the debate, but their collective voices may be muted as the battle over the judiciary takes a leap in intensity.
Only NCJW and the RAC, with their strong focus on abortion, civil and religious rights, have made the judicial battle a major concern, although several others have weighed in on some nominees they considered particularly egregious.
Most other Jewish groups are too worried about their nonprofit status, their politically diverse lay leadership and contributors — and, most of all, their precious access to the centers of power in Washington.
That reticence will be harder to maintain in the next four years. If Jewish leaders want a role in the most sweeping change in U.S. society in generations, they will have to join the messy, high-stakes fight over the judiciary.
Former Madisonian James Besser has been Washington correspondent for the New York Jewish Week, the Baltimore Jewish Times and other leading Anglo-Jewish newspapers for 15 years.
Diplomacy and danger likely in Mideast in next months
By Daniel Pipes
“I think it’s very important for our friends, the Israelis, to have a peaceful Palestinian state living on their border. And it’s very important for the Palestinian people to have a peaceful, hopeful future.”
So spoke President George W. Bush just two days after his re-election, just exactly as news reports were leaking of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s demise.
The combination of Bush’s stunning new mandate and Arafat’s near-death condition will lead, I predict, to a quick revival of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy after months of doldrums — and to massive dangers to Israel.
The doldrums will cease because the Bush administration views Arafat as the main impediment to achieving its vision of achieving a “Palestine” living in harmony side-by-side with Israel.
As Arafat exits, taking with him his stench of terrorism, corruption, extremism and tyranny, Washington will jump to make its vision a reality.
This observer expects the president’s efforts will not just fail but – like so much prior Arab-Israeli diplomacy – have a counterproductive effect. I say this for two reasons.
The first has to do with Bush’s own understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The president’s major statement of June 2002 remains the guideline to his goals vis-à-vis this conflict. In it, he outlined his vision for a “provisional” Palestinian state and called on Israel to end its “settlement activity in the occupied territories.”
As these two steps make up the heart of the Palestinian program, Bush was effectively inviting the Palestinians to behave themselves for long enough to collect these rewards, and then go back on the warpath.
He should have told the Palestinians that they need unequivocally and permanently to accept that Israel is and will always remain a Jewish state, plus they need to renounce violence against it.
Furthermore, they must make this change visible in Palesintian schools, communications media, mosques and political rhetoric before any discussion of benefits can begin.
Bush did not make these demands. So, as Eli Lake has reported in the New York Sun, his approach translates into likely pressure on Israel.
Time of the gunmen
The second reason has to do with the situation in the Palestinian territories. There will be no successor to Arafat; he made sure of that through his endless manipulations, tricks and schemes.
Instead, this is the moment of the gunmen. Whether they fight for criminal gangs, warlords, security services or ideological groups like Hamas, militiamen grasping for land and treasure will dominate the Palestinian scene for months or years ahead.
The sort of persons familiar from past diplomacy or from television commentaries (Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qureia, et al.) lack gunmen, and so will have limited relevance going forward.
The Palestinian territories have already descended into a hellish anarchy, and its circumstances will probably worsen as the strongmen struggle for power. Eventually, two of them will emerge with the ability to negotiate with the Israelis and Americans.
Note I said “two of them.” The geographic division of the West Bank and Gaza, of only minor import until now, looms large upon Arafat’s passing.
As Jonathan Schanzer has suggested, whoever rules in the one unit is unlikely to gain traction in the other, making the notion of a “Palestine” that much more difficult to promote. Two Palestines, anyone?
Israel has been spared from unremitting U.S. pressure during the past three years only because Arafat continued to deploy the terrorism weapon, alienating Bush and aborting his diplomacy. Thanks to growing anarchy in the Palestinian territories, Israel will probably remain “lucky” for some time to come.
But this grace period will end once clever and powerful Palestinian leaders realize that by holding off the violence for a decent interval, they can rely on Israel’s only major ally pressuring the Jewish state into making unprecedented concessions.
I doubt this will happen on Bush’s watch. But if it does, I foresee potentially the most severe crisis ever in U.S.-Israel relations.
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and author of “Miniatures” (Transaction Publishers).
Bias against haredim still colors Jewish news media
By Rabbi Avi Shafran
Am Echad Resources
CBS news anchor Dan Rather’s recent experience during the past election was revealing of a fact we like to think isn’t one.
The seasoned newsman’s eager acceptance of questionable documents and his subsequent defense of their veracity should remind us that even when reporters think they are being objective, they sometimes are not.
Journalists are human. Like all of us, they harbor preconceptions and biases, which can unconsciously inform their judgment and reportage.
It’s no less so in the Jewish news media, perhaps most evident in the treatment of haredi, or, as commonly rendered, “ultra-Orthodox” Jews.
The phrase itself is a good place to start. “Ultra” means “excessively” – think “ultra-conservative” or “ultra-liberal.” A Jew is entitled, one supposes, to believe that haredim are “too” Orthodox; but we haredim don’t see ourselves that way, and the press should not be making such judgments.
While some Jewish news media organizations have moved away from the prejudicial term, that it thrived for so long (and continues to in some places) is disturbing and an indication of the subconscious assumptions at play.
Subtle anti-haredi sentiment is no less evident in news coverage. Haredim appear in most Jewish newspapers for the most part only when they misbehave; and sometimes they are even accused of entirely imaginary sins.
Take the often-resurrected assertion that, several years ago, Orthodox Jews threw feces at a provocative mixed-sex prayer group at the Western Wall. It never happened.
To be sure, there has been ugliness at such “showdowns.” But even wrongdoing should be reported accurately, not enhanced for shock value.
Moreover, haredi religious leaders’ warnings to their followers to ignore the provocateurs remain unmentioned in most of the reportage. The omission may not be intentional, but it is surely detrimental to the cause of truth.
Ominous hat
More recently, an article in the New York Jewish Week reported fears that political extremists in Israel might resort to violence. The piece featured a photograph of the mosque on the Temple Mount, with, in the foreground, looming and ominous, the silhouette of a man wearing a black hat.
There, unconscious bias was compounded by ignorance. If there are any Jews pushed by Palestinian intransigence, hatemongering and terrorism to contemplate violence, they are a tiny breakaway from the mainstream nationalist camp; but they most certainly are not haredim, whose response to terrorism is repentance and prayer.
Sometimes, the unfairness seems intentional. A recent “exposé” earlier this year in the national Jewish weekly Forward concerned a yeshiva alumnus’ self-published scholarly work on Jewish thinkers’ conceptions of the special nature of the Jew.
Among the accusations leveled at the book was that it suggested that Jews employ “deception” and “duplicity” in dealing with non-Jews, a suggestion nowhere to be found in the book.
The reporter may just have been a careless reader. But his later admission that he considers the yeshiva world to be “the equivalent of the [Muslim fascist] Taliban” hardly inspires confidence in his objectivity. More disturbing still, this “news” article received a prize from the American Jewish Press Association.
Also odd is how infrequently haredim appear on Jewish newspapers’ opinion pages, although the Jewish news media prides itself on providing a diversity of viewpoints. (That you’re reading this here speaks well of this newspaper.)
Most Jewish papers, to be sure, do offer Orthodox representation; but, curiously, it is weighed almost entirely toward the far left end of the Orthodox spectrum, and often focused on criticizing the haredi world.
Were the haredi world anemic and dwindling, the situation might be understandable. But the phenomenal successes of haredi educational institutions and outreach groups seems to indicate that the haredi world is a vibrant part of the Jewish scene.
The favored status of “progressive,” nominally-Orthodox representatives in the Jewish media is evident, too, in skewed reportage. Small fringe “movements” are accorded major status, and (wishfully, one suspects) heralded as the wave of the Orthodox future against all evidence and reasonable likelihood.
Agenda-driven journalism is particularly evident when feminism and homosexuality are at issue. How many times do we have to read accounts of the “first gay Orthodox rabbi” before some reporter is responsible enough to observe that anyone who redefines established Jewish law (not to mention explicit Torah verses) is by definition other than Orthodox?
There’s nothing inherently wrong, of course, with a medium being parochial or partisan; the haredi press is unabashedly that. The general Jewish news media organs, however, don’t perceive themselves as rejecting haredim and their ideas; it holds high the banner of objective, nonjudgmental reportage.
Therefore, they need to do some soul-searching. Jewish news media staff members shouldn’t permit their own even unconscious prejudices to skew how it views fellow Jews who are uncompromisingly committed to all Jews’ religious tradition.
Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America. An edited version of this column, under a different title, appeared in The New York Jewish Week.
Loading ...
