J Street Wins Fresh Support as President Conference Snubs Application

By Nathan Guttman

Published May 01, 2014, issue of May 09, 2014.

the Forward on line 

One day after American Jewry’s pro-Israel umbrella group strongly rejected its bid for admission, J Street, the dovish lobby, posted a tongue-in-cheek thank you note.

Entitled “Thank You, Conference of Presidents,” the post invited readers to sign on to a letter to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations thanking its executive vice chairman, Malcolm Hoenlein.

“Thank you,” the letter said, addressing Hoenlein, “for finally making it clear that the Conference of Presidents is not representative of the voice of the Jewish community.”

The virtual thank you cards are unlikely to reach Hoenlein’s desk. But in the aftermath of the vote rejecting J Street, even some of the umbrella group’s own largest organizational members are voicing frustration with the group that purports to speak for American Jews on issues related to Israel.

The Reform movement, American Judaism’s largest denomination, has been leading the charge for reforming the Conference, which was established in 1956 and tasked with serving as the communal voice on issues relating to Israel and foreign policy.

“As of yesterday, it is clear that the Conference of Presidents, as currently constituted and governed, no longer serves its vital purpose of providing a collective voice for the entire American Jewish pro-Israel community,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in a statement.

The harsh language was followed by a stern warning: “We may choose to advocate for a significant overhaul of the Conference of Presidents’ processes. We may choose to simply leave the Conference of Presidents. But this much is certain: We will no longer acquiesce to simply maintaining the facade that the Conference of Presidents represents or reflects the views of all of American Jewry.”

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Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197490/j-street-wins-fresh-support-as-president-conferenc/?p=all#ixzz30W9iVgHk

BREAKING: J Street Rejected by American Jewish Umbrella Group in ‘Big Tent’ Litmus Test

from the Algeimeiner April 30, 2014

JNS.org – In what many observers will see as the de facto expression of mainstream U.S. Jewry’s outlook on J Street, members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Wednesday voted 22-17 (with three abstentions) to reject the membership application of the self-labeled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. J Street secured the votes of only about a third of the Conference’s 50 members.

The 42 Conference members in attendance in New York exceeded the 75-percent quorum needed to hold the vote, but J Street fell significantly short of the required threshold of a two-thirds affirmative vote from the Conference’s full membership. The result that 25 organizations either voted against J Street or abstained meant that half of the Conference’s members declined to support J Street’s application.

“The Conference meticulously followed its long-established Process and Procedures Guidelines in considering J Street’s application. … The present membership of the Conference includes organizations which represent and articulate the views of broad segments of the American Jewish community and we are confident that the Conference will continue to present the consensus of the community on important national and international issues as it has for the last 50 years,” said Conference of Presidents Chairman Robert G. Sugarman and Executive Vice Chairman/CEO Malcolm Hoenlein.

J Street said in a statement, “This is a sad day for us, but also for the American Jewish community and for a venerable institution that has chosen to bar the door to the communal tent to an organization that represents a substantial segment of Jewish opinion on Israel.”  Please CLICK HERE to keep reading

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ADL will vote to admit J Street to Conference of Presidents

Abe Foxman cites the need ‘to ensure the integrity and credibility of American Jewish advocacy’

BY RON KAMPEAS April 30, 2014, 4:36 am

TA — “There is more tolerance for dissent in Israel than in the Jewish community,” Abraham Foxman told me yesterday at the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Washington conference.

That’s one reason the ADL’s national director gave for why it makes sense for J Street to be admitted to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“We will support the admission of J Street not because we agree with them, not because we support their views, but in order to ensure the integrity and credibility of American Jewish advocacy and of the Conference of Presidents,” he said.

The ADL nod swells mainstream, centrist support for the admission into the community’s foreign policy umbrella of J Street, a group that calls itself “pro-Israel, pro-peace” and is often critical of Israeli government policy.

Backers of J Street’s admission say they have reached “critical mass” for J Street’s entry — 34 of the conference’s 51 members.

Also favoring entry in the secret ballot that may take place Wednesday afternoon are the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the community’s domestic policy umbrella; the Union for Reform Judaism, and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly. “The RA will be voting affirmatively for J Street to become a member of the COP,” its executive vice president, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, told me in an email.

I understand that the Jewish Federations of North America also likely will vote in favor.

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Read more: ADL will vote to admit J Street to Conference of Presidents | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/adl-will-vote-to-admit-j-street-to-conference-of-presidents/#ixzz30Ka70Yjn
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J Street on the Docket

Will Left-Leaning Israel Lobby Be Let Into the Tent?

J STREET

Uphill Fight: J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami came under attack at a committee meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

By Theodore Sasson

Published April 27, 2014, issue of May 02, 2014.

NOTE: The goal is Peace in Israel. The means may vary. This is going to be very interesting and cannot be ignored: 

On April 30, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations will vote on J Street’s application for admission. It will be a significant moment not just for the left-leaning lobby, but also for the Jewish establishment as a whole, which will have to provide a verdict on whether the communal tent should include an organization that has publicly opposed the policies of the current Israeli government.

The 51-member Presidents Conference includes the larger religious, advocacy, service, fraternal and fundraising organizations. Newly established groups like J Street must wait five years before applying to join, and a vote of two-thirds of the membership is required for acceptance. The fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi was admitted earlier this year as the newest member.

From a bit farther in the article: (Italics are mine)

A vote against J Street would also call into question the Presidents Conference’s own claim to represent organized American Jewry. With dozens of chapters across the country and on college campuses, the support of more than 700 rabbis and cantors, and annual conventions that attract thousands — including Israeli Knesset members from both the government and the opposition — J Street certainly qualifies as a major Jewish organization.

Moreover, as the Pew Research Center’s 2013 survey documented, J Street’s political platform — in favor of a two-state solution, opposed to settlement expansion and skeptical of the aims of the current Israeli government — represents a strong tendency in the American Jewish public.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/197114/j-street-on-the-docket/?p=all#ixzz308f9xOM9


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J Street U Brandeis’ Talia Lepson Harasses Pro-Israel Student

J Street leader to pro-Israel student: ‘Jews hate you’

BY: Adam Kredo  
April 27, 2014 1:30 pm

A top J Street leader at Brandeis University harassed a pro-Israel student activist early Saturday morning, calling the student a “shit bag” and telling him that “Jews hate you,” according to those who witnessed the incident.

Daniel Mael was walking to his dorm room on the university’s campus late Friday night when he encountered Talia Lepson, a J Street U Brandeis board member, who purportedly referred to Mael as a “shit bag” and angrily told him “Jews hate you.”

“I don’t feel comfortable on campus knowing people will lob verbal insults at me simply because we disagree,” said Mael, who has filed an incident report with the Brandeis police over what he described at the “uncivil environment that is developing on campus and the attempts to isolate students with differing opinions.”

The incident is just one of several at Brandeis lately in which pro-Israel students have come under fire for their attempts to defend the Jewish state on campus from groups such as J Street.

Mael said that he and a friend were returning to their dorm rooms at around 12:45 a.m. on Saturday when he came across Lepson—who says she currently works as a political intern at the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—and a group of her friends.

“As they approached, Talia Lepson give me a really, really intense stare and then I turned to the students and said, ‘Shabbat shalom,’” said Mael, who is an observant Jew. “I was being serious. I thought that religion and politics are not necessarily intertwined. I thought you could still be nice.”

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