Regarding Jim Beer’s column in the January Chronicle questioning whether Milwaukee’s Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation should take a position on “political” issues:
Beer would be correct that the Jewish community errs when being a voice for liberal causes only if we Jews were people who assemble together simply for occasional prayer meetings and social gatherings. But we are more than worshipers or fraternal organization members.
The people of Israel established over time a clear set of ethical and moral priorities whose aim has been to uphold human compassion and raise human dignity. These values are our centuries-old “prophetic charge,” as JCRC director Elana Kahn-Oren properly noted in her column.
These are mitzvot (commandments) that come from God. These motivations compel us, and give us the sanction, to take principled stands on matters of public policy.
Our values emanate from our sacred texts. More than 36 times the Torah reminds us to care for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan.
The book of Deuteronomy (16:20) commands that we forcefully and tirelessly pursue justice. Each Israelite prophet railed against the injustices of their societies, where people followed the letter of the law when it came to sacrifices, but disregarded the needs of the downtrodden.
Acting on these values has made Judaism a “light of nations” (Isaiah 42:6). Our support for oppressed people is founded not on our opinion about oppressed people or about issues that concern them, but whether our support is just and ethical, and these values we can learn by studying our tradition.
It is our obligation as a community to speak out on these issues, to offer these sacred viewpoints to legislators and to garner support from other communities if it can be found. These are all crucial tasks and goals of JCRCs, and I support Milwaukee’s JCRC in its pursuit of these goals.
Rabbi Jonathan Biatch is spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Madison and a board member of Wisconsin Faith Voices for Justice.
As a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, I would like to comment on Jim Beer’s proposal in the January Chronicle that the JCRC “refrain from taking positions on any and all political matters.”
Beer, a conservative, writes that the liberal positions taken by the JCRC do not represent him. Although I do not agree with Beer that the JCRC should shun political positions, his point about representation is valid.
The JCRC includes 27 members who represent synagogues and Jewish organizations; and another 27 are “at-large members,” chosen by the nominating committee. In addition, all former presidents of the JCRC are life-members and each was selected for that role by a past nominating committee.
Therefore, a majority of the JCRC members are chosen by nominating committees. These committees are appointed by the president, so it is possible for a group of like-minded people to retain effective control of the JCRC for decades through this process.
As a result, Reform Jews are over-represented as leaders in the JCRC, while Orthodox Jews are under-represented.
The JCRC could be made more representative of Milwaukee’s Jewish population by a few changes in the rules. First, limit the former presidents to 10 years of membership. (I proposed this change, but it was defeated.)
Next, let the at-large members be elected by the Jewish community, rather than selected by a committee. Ballots could be printed in The Chronicle or be e-mailed by the MJF.
This way, people with conservative views would have a fair chance of winning a seat on the JCRC. Contested elections for these positions would raise the JCRC’s profile in the Jewish community, which would make it more effective.
Since most Jews are liberals, liberals would still dominate. But the JCRC would represent Milwaukee Jewry in way that it never has.
In regard to the “Two Views” articles in the January Chronicle: In her defense of the taking of political positions by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, JCRC director Elana Kahn-Oren demonstrated the very concern that Jim Beer questioned in his article.
Kahn-Oren stated that the JCRC’s positions “are often consistent with liberal politics” because the Jewish community “supports programs that serve the poor, elderly, disabled, and vulnerable.”
In other words, liberal and not conservative politics supports the disadvantaged. This constitutes the very bias Beer was concerned about.
Concern for the “poor, elderly, disabled and vulnerable” is not a political position. Conservatives have as much concern for these groups as do liberals; they just have different methods to solve their problems.
For example, while conservatives tend to not support government programs to help these groups, they give more of their own money to private charities that help these groups than do liberals.
The classic example is the choice between helping to feed the hungry by giving them a fish or teaching them how to fish. Beer’s position was that all too often the JCRC chooses the liberal political methods of giving a fish rather than the conservative position of teaching how to fish.
Ethical, righteous, just and compassionate alternative conservative methods exist for every liberal method the JCRC has chosen to support. The primary difference is that liberal methods are designed to make the provider feel good, whereas the conservative methods are designed to actually help the recipient.
I read with great interest the “Two Views” page in the January issue of the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle with its debating articles by Jim Beer and Elana Kahn-Oren.
There is a fallacy lurking in the very names of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Wisconsin Jewish Conference. That fallacy is the notion that there is a monolithic, unified Jewish community which speaks with one voice. As Beer pointed out, this is flatly untrue.
No amount of “debate” or “democracy” within the JCRC can obscure the fact that, once the JCRC officials have decided to issue a given policy statement, that statement represents the views of the JCRC members who espouse it, no one else’s.
There is a term for the sort of “democracy” which this represents, coined by Russian communist dictator V. I. Lenin: “democratic centrism.” It describes the way in which the Bolsheviks of his day reached their policy pronouncements: They were debated in the party’s central committee, and when the vote was taken, the result became the policy of the party at large, to which everyone had to adhere.
It is long past time that the JCRC cease to pretend in the name of all Wisconsin, or even Milwaukee, Jews, as though this mythical monolithic community exists. The JCRC does not speak for Beer or me; and it does not speak for thousands of other Milwaukee Jews when it issues its pronouncements.
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