James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

This is a really delicate question, so don’t get me wrong.  But I can’t help thinking American Jewish groups are taking a certain satisfaction that the Gaza offensive and the predictable shift of world opinion against Israel are presenting them a problem they know how to deal with – unlike the financial carnage that is upending the Jewish world and threatening the survival of some venerable institutions.

Nobody’s happy about the danger Israel’s soldiers are facing or about the innocent victims of Palestinian rocket attacks inside Israel.  Few hawks I’ve encountered take joy in the death of Palestinian civilians victimized by the Hamas terrorists who hide in their midst.

But an energized, mobilized American Jewish community may be feeling a certain sense of relief because the renewed war has returned them to familiar territory.

For six months, maybe more, Jewish groups large and small have started coming to  terms with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and the inevitable decline in their own fortunes.  Endowments plunged with  the stock market; big donors watched their own portfolios shrink by the day, leading to inevitable concerns about next year’s giving.  The economists’ projections became more dire by the day; some even used the “D” word.

And all of this was before Bernard Madoff revealed what federal officials say was the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, with countless wealthy Jews his top victims, not to mention a number of Jewish organizations and charitable foundations.

It was a bleak time, with no end in sight, and Jewish leaders can be forgiven for feeling a little out of their element; this is something none of them had experienced, and there were no magic answers for a possible new era when Darwinian survival, not the endless outpouring of a prosperous and secure community,  will shape the communal world.

Then along came the Gaza war, with Israel once again facing both military danger and the opprobrium of a world that cares not a whit about Israeli victims of Palestinian missiles but reacts instantly to any Israeli effort to stop the attacks.

That mean a return to familiar terrain: a massive rallying behind the Jewish state, a clear sense of mission, well-known adversaries (Hamas,  an unbalanced United Nations, groups that say it’s all Israel’s fault).  Even the debate with the Jewish left must be a relief to the mainstream groups  — familiar arguments that fit like a comfortable old shoe).

I’m not suggesting Jewish leaders welcomed the carnage in Gaza. I am saying that there may be a palpable element of relief among Jewish activists who can again do what they know how to do, instead of focusing on a scary, economic crisis that puts the entire communal world in jeopardy.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

During the presidential  campaign, a persistent subtheme in the Jewish community was the role of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft in the Obama foreign policy team.

Seeking to calm the nerves of pro-Israel hawks, the campaign’s Jewish outreach team portrayed Scowcroft – who served the first President Bush and who some believe was a primary architect of that administration’s confrontations with the Shamir government in Israel – as a fringe player. (It should be noted that many also believe the Bush-Baker-Scowcroft team deserves credit for starting the first real, sustained peace process with the 1991 Madrid talks)

But Joe Klein has an interesting blog in Time suggesting that Scowcroft’s role could be a significant factor in how the new administration treats the Israeli-Pal conflict.  Klein doesn’t predict a dramatic policy upheaval, but the possibility of a “subtle but significant change from the Bush 43 policies of talking a nice game about a two-state solution but never doing much about it–and of actively supporting disproportionate Israeli responses to Arab outrages. There would be a constant process of negotiation, in the hope of preventing the sort of explosions we’re seeing now in Gaza. There would be an attempt to nudge both sides back to the peace plan proposed by Bill Clinton.”

Read it here.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

This just in: Rep. Dennis Kucinich  (D-Ohio) is calling for  an “independent” investigation into “Israel’s war against Gaza,” which he says amounts to “collective punishment.” (Read his statement here)

And what body does the Ohio liberal think is right for the investigation? Why, it’s the fair, balanced United Nations — the very same UN that largely ignored ongoing rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza into Israeli towns, but which is now exercised about Israel’s military response.

Kucinich concedes that “the perpetrators of attacks against Israel must also be brought to justice,” but puts almost all the onus for the current conflict on Israel, which he says is “leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law.”

“Dennis must have been back on his home planet for the last few years, so he missed the constant rocket attacks on Israeli civilians,” said a longtime pro-Israel lobbyist here.

No doubt the Cleveland lawmaker will find a receptive audience at UN headquarters, but in Washington his anti-Israel blast will get about as much attention as his abortive 2008 run for the Democratic presidential nomination

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

It’s hard to find anything positive to say about a record-shattering scammer who may have bilked Jewish charities out of hundreds of millions of dollars and shattered Jewish philanthropy by decimating the bank accounts of countless big givers, but there could  be one salutary impact of Bernard Madoff’s mother of all Ponzi schemes: it may force the Jewish world to confront a radically changed economic climate.

For months, I’ve been struck by a kind of whistling-past-the-graveyard attitude from Jewish leaders.

Sure, times are tough right now, they keep saying, but that’s the nature of the economy: there are ups and downs, but this is America, after all, and it won’t take long to get our economy back on track.

Implicit in their response is the notion that while we may be in for an unusually deep recession, the only real difference between the current downturn and all the other post-World War II recessions is an order of magnitude.

So getting through it is mostly a matter of making minor adjustments – in personal finance and in the operation of Jewish groups – and hunkering down for the duration.

More and more, that attitude looks like wishful thinking as cascading crashes – housing, finance, spending, credit, jobs –  suggest something far out of the postwar routine.  Denial may keep our community’s leaders from doing the things they need to do to keep their organizations afloat – and to keep them providing critical services at a time when demand is already soaring.

The Jewish communal infrastructure is built on the community’s preeminent position. That, in turn, is largely a function of a U.S. economy that has been on an upward trajectory,  despite some momentary blips, since the 1950s.  We have an upper crust of the very affluent who think nothing of writing hundred-thousand dollar checks; we have a middle range of contributors who, while not wealthy, have enough money to support multiple causes.

The rich aren’t exactly hitting the streets with tin cups, but the impact of severe meltdowns in housing, finance and industry have radically reduced the wealth of many. The comfortable middle class is starting to fear for its comfort and security for the first time since the 1930s.

What Madoff has done is provide a jolt to a communal network that was slow to face up to the fact they may now confront a harsh new climate in which only the strongest, smartest and most adaptable will survive.

By targeting the richest, Madoff may have shattered the comforting illusion that no matter how much the economy sours, those core big-givers on whom every major Jewish group depends will always be there to pick up the slack.

Madoff losses have already forced numerous organizations and foundations to adopt more professional financial controls and policies instead of the loose, old-boys network that has caused many so much grief in the wake of his alleged scheme, and to start thinking about survival strategies for hard times.

Maybe the current recession will prove to be just that – a recession understandable according to everything we’ve learned in the past 60 years. But there are growing indications it could be something deeper, longer and harder to stop.  In that case, the Jewish organizations that survive will be the ones that adjust quickly and creatively to an environment in which the old verities no longer hold.

That’s a wrenching change to make for groups accustomed to success. Bernie Madoff and his devastating Ponzi scheme may have pierced the attitude of wishful thinking that was keeping many Jewish leaders from making it.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

This week’s bizarre presidential pardon story probably didn’t do Jonathan Pollard any good – although there weren’t any hints that President Bush was ever seriously considering commuting the sentence of the Israeli spy, now in his 23rd year in federal prison.

In case you missed it, Bush pardoned Isaac Robert Toussie, a Brooklyn developer and convicted housing scam perpetrator. Almost immediately, the pardon produced rage among New Yorkers who said they were victims of Toussie’s schemes – and a firestorm of controversy because Toussie’s father gave some $30,800 to Republicans this year.

With blinding speed, the White House snatched back the pardon, saying officials there were unaware of the political contributions.

What does this have to do with Pollard, aside from the fact that Toussie, too, is Jewish?

Bush, more than most of his predecessors and certainly more than Bill Clinton, has tried to avoid controversy in exercising his pardon powers. For the most part, recipients have been folks almost nobody has heard of, whose pardons produced no ripples of opposition.

The Toussie fiasco upset those calculations; it’s hard to believe Bush won’t be extra careful about any other pardons during his few remaining days in office.

And Pollard’s release would be certain to generate controversy, primarily from defense and intelligence officials who continue to vehemently oppose his release, both for irrational reasons like the possibility his release could damage U.S. security interests (Oh please: after 23 years, does this guy know anything that could hurt U.S. interests?)  and for the more understandable concern about pardoning a spy whose supporters continue to argue that his actions back in the 1980s were justified.

Also not helpful to Pollard’s cause: this week’s offer by a far-right party in Israel –wisely declined by Pollard – to put him on their Knesset list for the upcoming election.

Did the Our Land of Israel party genuinely think a president who still thinks he’ll be remembered for his Mideast peacemaking efforts would be impressed by the offer of a Kahanist group that would just add to Pollard’s stature as a hero of Israel’s far right?

Pollard’s people aren’t giving up; this week they were continuing efforts to flood the White House with calls asking for his commutation. Recently the  Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations wrote to the president, arguing for commutation on humanitarian grounds.

Adam Dickter in New York

President Bush’s second wave of pardons as he packs his bags included a man who paid a price for sticking his neck out for Israel. No, not Jonathan Pollard.

A quarter-century after the death of Charlie Winters, a civilian who helped the fledgling Jewish state acquire military aircraft in violation of a U.S. Middle East arms embargo, Bush pardoned him at the behest of his family and several other petitioners, including Steven Spielberg and several members of Congress.

But Winters’ illegal actions can’t be compared to those of Pollard, who betrayed his country by selling data to the Israelis that the intelligence community insists endangered the lives of operatives in the field. Successive presidents over the past 25 years have resisted calls by Pollard activists to let him go, notwithstanding the fact that he has served more time than many people who gave data to hostile countries. But supporters who feel that he has served enough time for his crime are still hopeful.

“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner of the National Council of Young Israel, a longtime Pollard activist who has set up a Web site, FreePollardNow, urging people to call the White House in the remaining weeks.

To those who say Pollard is his own worst enemy, having equivocated on his own culpability for his crime, Rabbi Lerner says “he has been remorseful, in print and verbally, to government officials for years. Anyone who wants to say he doesn’t feel bad about what he did is just coming up with an excuse. I have known him for 15 years. He was a young guy put in a difficult situation who had to make an immediate decision and he made the wrong one.”

In lieu of a commutation by Bush, Lerner would not speculate on Pollard’s prospects for freedom during the Obama administration. “I’m still hoping and praying the president will let him out,” he said.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

The 111th Congress will be the most religiously diverse ever, but that doesn’t mean every religious group is represented according to its proportion in the population.

According to a new study by the  Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (read it here) , Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims are all underrepresented, while Catholics are   represented in excess of their place on the population charts.

But the real winner in the representation sweepstakes?

“Among the nation’s smaller religious groups, one group stands out in terms of its numbers in Congress: Jews, who account for just 1.7 percent of the U.S. adult population, make up 8.4 percent of Congress, including just over 13 percent of the Senate,” according to the Pew study.

When next month’s swearing-ins are over, there will be 32 Jews in the House, 13 in the Senate.  The latter number won’t be affected by the yet-to-be-decided Senate race in Minnesota, since both contestants in the longrunning post-election battle – incumbent Norm Coleman, a Republican, and Democrat Al Franken – are Jewish.

Protestants are still in the majority in Congress, but barely so – 55 percent, down from 75 percent in 1961.

There are two Muslims, two Buddhists and five who “did not specify a religious affiliation…and no members specifically said they were unaffiliated,”  Pew says.

That last figure contrasts with the 16 percent of the nation’s adult population who say they have no religious affiliation, making Capitol Hill a mighty religious place, if not necessarily a pious one.

Pew reports that there are now two Muslim members – Minnesota’s Keith Ellison and Indiana’s Andre Carson, both Democrats.  Muslims make up 0.6 percent of the U.S. adult population, 0.4 percent of Congress

There are big differences by party.  71 percent of congressional Republicans are Protestant, Pew says, while only 44 percent of Democrats are.  Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely than Republicans to be Catholic.

And the Jews? No surprises here; Jews are 13 percent of congressional Democrats, only 0.9 percent of congressional Republicans.

Adam Dickter in New York:

As of Friday afternoon, nearly 4,000 people had called a toll-free number set up by TEACH-NYS, a coalition of independent and religious schools, that was routed to the state budget office to protest some $55 million in funds for reimbursement of costs incurred by non-public schools. The calls came within about 24 hours since the group sent out an e-mail blast to dozens of schools, who then sent out the word to their communities.

“We overwhelmed their voice mail capabilities,” said David Greenfield, executive director of TEACH-NYS. “At one point there were three per minute. We had to re-route the calls from the budget office to the executive chamber.

According to TEACH-NYS says Gov. Paterson’s budet proposal ”would eliminate the Comprehensive Attendance Program (CAP) for non-public schools, cutting almost $55 million in funding as compared to last year’s budget.

“CAP is a state mandated program. It is a security measure that requires that schools take attendance at the start of every period to ensure that students are attending their classes and not leaving the school during class time. Without CAP, non-public schools will have to shoulder the burden of carrying out these security measures. If they cannot find the necessary funding to continue these security measures, they will be forced to cease them.

“Including CAP, the Mandated Services Reimbursement program for non-public schools totaled almost $135 million last year. The proposed budget cut would reduce funding for non-public schools to $80 million. That is a 41% permanent cut in funding for non-public schools.

“We understand that our current fiscal crisis warrants deep budget cuts, but the disparity between the 3.3% cut for public schools and the 41% cut for non-public schools is outrageous,” said David Greenfield, a spokesman for Teach NYS. “The cut amounts to a loss of hundreds of dollars per student for many schools, and will put schools in a situation where they will be forced to increase tuition at a time when many parents are already struggling mightily with the cost of tuition,” Greenfield added. “Our communities and parents will be fighting these cuts.”

Paterson spokeswoman Marissa Shorenstein said that since the CAP program reporting mandate was intended more for ” large public schools with thousands of students: and that it has been “less of a problem” for smaller private schools. “We are eliminating both the mandate and the funding that goes with it.”

She added “the governor has put forth a budget that includes shared pain and sacrifice and he has tried to do it in as equitable a way as possible while maintaining safety and education standards. It is up to Legislature now to work with us to put together a final budget.”

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

After his November 4 election, there was widespread speculation about which Jewish and pro-Israel groups would have access to Barack Obama’s White House – and which would be frozen out.

Thursday’s mass meeting between officials of the Obama transition team and representatives of 29  Jewish groups offered a partial answer.  A wide range of groups were represented at the meeting – from  Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, an aggressive pro-peace process group to AIPAC, the major pro-Israel lobby group.

Also present: Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who told the transition team that a growing number of Israelis now reject a two state solution.  But representatives of Americans for Peace Now, J Street and the Israel Policy Forum were also in the room, urging the new administration to move aggressively on the Israeli-Palestinian front.

Equal time was allotted for domestic and foreign policy issues.  Representatives of the major Orthodox groups - the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel of American and American Friends of Lubavitch –  were there, as well as officials of the Reform and Reconstructionist movements.  Several participants noted that there were more women than usual for such meetings.

Topics included the urgent need for an economic stimulus plan, immigration reform, judicial nominations, hate crimes legislation and church-state issues.

NCSJ, a group focused on Eastern Europe, called attention to growing concerns about a reemergent Russia; numerous groups pressed the new administration to focus heavily on preventing Iran from going nuclear.

Several participants praised the transition team’s willingness to listen to diverse views.
“It’s absolutely remarkable the openness and complete willingness to take the time to hear the community’s views on so many issues,” said Sammie Moshenberg, Washington director for the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW).  “It’s heartening.”

The meeting was videotaped, and portions will be posted online – another first for a transition team that says it wants to stress transparency.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

Isn’t it interesting how Democrats and Republicans alike have turned “regulation” into the foulest of political expletives – but as soon as things go bad, complain that the regulators weren’t on the job?

First it was the economy; as banks and finance institutions crumbled under the housing and subprime credit crises, there was a bipartisan chorus wailing about the failure of regulators to catch these problems before they touched off a worldwide economic meltdown.

But wait; weren’t  many of the singers the same folks who worked for decades to loosen regulation in order for free markets to work their magic?

Well, the magic has worked, and now everybody is wondering why the regulators were asleep at the wheel. Weren’t they supposed to protect us from…what, the same freewheeling markets that once dazzled us with high returns?

Now its the sordid Bernard Madoff affair, which is hitting banks around the world hard and  clobbering a Jewish communal infrastructure that was heavily, if not always intentionally,  invested in his Ponzi scheme.

When his “fund” was going great guns, investors would have been outraged at any hint government regulators wanted to slam on the brakes or even just slow the high-return juggernaut. But now that $50 billion in investments has apparently just disappeared, everybody’s complaining that government regulators should have been more diligent in protecting us from Bernie — and apparently from our own faulty judgment.

It would be nice if these events settled once and for all the endless debate over regulation and produced a consensus that while free-enterprise capitalism works splendidly to create wealth, we also need diligent, sometimes stern and intrusive regulators to stem the inevitable tendency for things to spin out of control.

But history suggests otherwise; chances are, when the economy recovers from the recession and Madoff is but a distant bad memory, “deregulation” will once again become a mantra as everybody with a few bucks to invest jumps aboard the amnesia-inducing roller coaster.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

It’s the weekend, so official reaction from Jewish groups has been limited, but communal boardrooms will be buzzing on Monday as the devastation apparently wreaked by Bernard Madoff,  the onetime hedge fund mastermind, sinks in.

Madoff was arrested on Friday after admitting to colleagues that his hedge fund was a $50 billion sham – the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.

Concerns among Jewish leaders center on three issues.

Many affluent Jews – pillars of the community and major supporters of Jewish organizations – could face huge losses because they had invested so much of their money with a manager with a reputation for high returns, secrecy and an easy way with the Jewish country club set.

As givers tote up their losses, the Madoff scandal could be one more blow to Jewish groups that face big drops in contributions because of the worldwide financial meltdown.

Secondly, many Jewish groups entrusted some or most of their money to Madoff – money that essentially vanished.

Already, the Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation in Massachusetts, which funds various Jewish projects in New England, has  shut its doors because its endowment was invested with Madoff.

Yeshiva University – Madoff just resigned as treasurer of the YU board and from the board of its Sy Syms School of Business — says it is looking at its books to determine the impact of his fund’s downfall on the school.

Sources say YU’s $1.8 billion endowment is down about 30 percent overall — and that about $100 million of the losses are connected to its Madoff investments.

Over the weekend, the school apparently scoured its Web site of references to Madoff

On Sunday the Washington Post reported that the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System lost $5 million and the Julian J. Levitt Foundation lost six.  The Post said damage from the Madoff fraud “appears to be deepest in the small world of Jewish philanthropy, where Madoff was a leading figure.”

What other Jewish groups had money invested with Madoff, a former head of NASDAQ?  How will that impact Jewish groups already facing a financial emergency? A lot of that will become clearer in the next few days.

Finally, there’s the issue of anti-Semitic fallout.

It’s true that Madoff’s fund drew heavily from Jewish investors as clients.  But the image of one of the worst financial scams in history – and one that could have a huge impact on already unstable markets – has already produced an outpouring of anti-Semitic postings on Web sites around the world.  Madoff’s affiliation with Jewish groups and with wealthy Jews in New York and Palm Beach is routinely mentioned – not necessarily inappropriately — in news reports on the scandal.

Groups like the Anti-Defamation League have been worrying for months about what they say is the strong likelihood the worldwide financial meltdown, surging unemployment and the foreclosure epidemic will produce an uptick in anti-Semitism as people look for scapegoats (read an ADL press release on the issue here).

In the wake of the Madoff disclosures, “anti-Semites are having a field day on the Web,” said the leader of a major pro-Israel group over the weekend.  “It’s very bad.”

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

Speaking during a recent JCPA conference call about the new administration’s foreign policy team, I was struck by this gap between perception and reality: while so many Israel-focused Jews seem to believe a major element of Barack Obama’s transition is figuring out how to change U.S. policy on Israel and the Palestinians, the reality is that the issue is probably far down on the team’s long list of immediate priorities

Israel’s supporters tend to see politics through a lens that hugely magnifies that issue and shrinks others to the margins. But on January 21, Obama is going to pad down to the Oval Office in his bedroom slippers and get smacked in the face with an economy that is in the greatest peril since the Great Depression, two wars – one looking like it’s going worse by the day  – and huge international dangers like Pakistan and an expanding worldwide terror network.

Yes, there are plenty of people who have the president-elect’s ear who believe that Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking should be an early priority, and during the campaign Obama himself promised to make it one.
But that was then; now looks very different. More and more, Israel and the Palestinians are a second or third tier issue because of the incredible confluence of crises facing the new administration, and because even peace process optimists can’t figure out how major progress can be made while Hamas controls Gaza and Fatah sort of controls the West Bank.

Pro-Israel Jews are hoping the new administration makes Iran and its quest for nuclear weapons a priority, but there, too, other issues are conspiring to push the issue down on its must-do list.

Israel is legitimately concerned about an Iran that is trying to build its first atom bomb, and which has threatened to annihilate the Jewish state; Washington is a little more worried right now about Pakistan’s 60-plus bombs, its North Korean missiles and a weak central government that has lost control of major parts of the  country.

Columnist and former AIPAC lobbyist Doug Bloomfield recently wrote that  “Washington has reportedly spent more than $100 million to help secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, although it does not even know its size or location.”

How long before the government loses control of those bombs? Could they end up in the hands of Islamic terrorists, including those bent on destroying Israel? Israel is rightly worried the not-yet-developed Iranian bomb could be given to terrorists, but the Pakistani threat could be far greater and much more  immediate. Pro-Israel groups that have made the Iran fight a top priority in recent years don’t want to hear that, but it’s the reality that’s likely to emerge after January 20.

That doesn’t mean the Obama administration will ignore those issues.  On Israel and the Palestinians, the new president is likely to appoint a special envoy to the region, and possibly make a major speech laying out his longterm goals.

But the game now isn’t to push for a comprehensive agreement anytime soon. Instead, the new administration is likely to work to keep the pot from boiling over, encourage modest improvements on the ground in areas like Palestinian security, economic development and easing conditions for Palestinians on the West Bank. Maybe they’ll quietly probe for ways to deal with the Hamas-Fatah split.  They’ll certainly keep their eyes open for changes on the Israeli-Syrian front.

No doubt a Mideast peace team will start working at the State Department and the White House, planning for some future U.S. peace push – but the issue is not going to be a top priority for  Obama himself , and probably not for his secretary of state,  Hillary Clinton.

On Iran, there will be quiet efforts to open up lines of communication with the Teheran and to figure out how that dialog might contribute to the cause of preventing their acquisition of nuclear weapons; at the same time, there will be a continuation of efforts to tighten sanctions.

But it’s unlikely to rival the economy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or the worsening South Asian crisis when it comes to top-level attention.

With big trouble at home and abroad,  this presidential transition is really about triage – figuring out the most immediate and dangerous in a long list of crises, and focusing top-level administration attention on trying to unravel problems that threaten the nation not next month or next year, but today.

Pro-Israel Jews tend to think it’s all about Israel and the Middle East. But as 2009 and a new administration dawn, that’s not what’s keeping president-to-be up at night.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

Here’s the non-surprise of the year: President George W. Bush has once again waived provisions of the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act mandating that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Back in 2000  Bush, running for the presidency,  promised to begin the move “as soon as I take office,” but then changed his mind, repeatedly invoking the law’s “national security” waiver position.

That put him in sync with former President Bill Clinton, who was also regarded as a strong supporter of Israel – and who nonetheless refused to initiate the move.

Some starry-eyed  optimists in the pro-Israel world had hoped Bush would pick up the phone and call in the movers as a dramatic end-of-term gesture.

But most pro-Israel leaders recognize the Jerusalem embassy issue for what it is: a convenient but essentially meaningless  promise trotted out by candidates in both parties during their campaigns even though it’s not a real priority for officials here or in Israel.

Israeli leaders haven’t pushed for it because they fear the impact of an action that has taken on huge symbolic meaning on faltering negotiations with the Palestinians; officials in Washington don’t take action because they believe it would be a fatal blow to U.S. credibility as an honest broker in  those negotiations and upend relations with friendly Arab and Muslim countries, and because they know major pro-Israel groups won’t go to the mattresses on the issue.

Indeed, Israel didn’t ask for the original 1995 Embassy Act, which originated as part of former Sen. Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, not out of policy considerations.

That doesn’t mean the embassy won’t end up in Jerusalem. There is an almost universal expectation that if there ever is an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, one of the first U.S. actions will be to move the embassy to a city whose status and borders will have been worked out by the parties to the treaty.

Until then, Jewish leaders will continue to demand that politicians promise to move the embassy, politicians will continue to mouth platitudes about the city and its status  – and nobody will fuss too much when the embassy stays put because almost everybody understands that this a political charade, not to be taken too seriously.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

In Minnesota, as it turns out, a recount won’t be enough to determine the winner of a hotly contested Senate race.   The only thing that’s certain: the  winner will definitely be a Jewish guy from New York.

On Friday, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, state officials have finished the recount mandated by the extraordinarily close margin on November 4. The results:  incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican, leads comedian/political newcomer Al Franken by 192 votes.  That means Franken picked up 23 votes since the recount  began.

End of story? Hardly.  Some 133 ballots from a Minneapolis precinct apparently went missing in recent days, preventing the Minneapolis Secretary of State from proclaiming Coleman the victor.

And 6,655 ballots have been challenged by the two campaigns. Those ballots have to be reviewed by a canvassing board, which meets next week. Also, what about what the Star-Tribune calls an “unknown number of absentee ballots that election officials acknowledge were mistakenly rejected.”

Look for a windfall for Minnesota lawyers and continued uncertainty about exactly how big the Democrats expanded majority will be when the new Senate convenes in early January.

If the Barack Obama administration decides to continue with a policy of exporting American democracy around the world, they might be wise to exclude Minnesota election officials from their training teams.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

Mik Moore, the Jewish Funds for Justice blogger and co-creator of the “Great Shlep,” the pro-Obama youth crusade in Florida, has a provocative item this week about why predictions of an anti-Obama vote in the Jewish community proved wildly inaccurate.

Despite the 78 percent Jewish tally for Obama, Moore said he is “more interested in exploring why so many Jews were such fertile ground for the smears; why so many Jews had a narrative with which to fill in the blanks about Obama. “

Moore goes back to the black-Jewish conflicts in the 1980s and early 1990s and the tendency of Jewish community elders to lash out against any anti-Jewish statement by any black leader.

That, he said, continues to influence “how Jews came to regard all black leaders.   Revs Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, anyone from the Nation of Islam; they became the representative black leader to many Jews.”

Then he asks the obvious question: why, then, did so many Jews end up voting for Obama on November 4.   He cites a number of factors, including the souring economy, Obama’s effective outreach and growing familiarity with a relative newcomer to the national political scene.

Based on his own experiences, he said the single biggest factor was GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who personified the other big fear of the Jewish community: the extreme Christian right.

Many political scientists agree with Moore’s analysis, especially on the Palin issue.  But the 2008 presidential election poses a number of intriguing question about the Jewish vote that have yet to be answered.

*  How big a factor was Obama’s race with Jewish voters, and exactly how did that play out on November 4?

This paper, among others, cited numerous reports – from rabbis, from parochial school officials, from voters in Florida – suggesting that race was a significant factor for many Jewish voters, and yet the only numbers we have are the final vote tallies, which show Jewish voters going more pro-Obama than just about any other white group.

Did factors like Palin and the bad economy simply shove the race factor into the background, or were reports of the race factor’s emergence exaggerated?  We just don’t know.

We do know that Orthodox voters were far likelier to vote for McCain than the non-Orthodox. But was that race, or issues like Israel, parochial school aid and the whole range of “values” issues?  Or all of the above?  Again,many theories, few hard answers.

*  What about the Jewish youth vote?

Back when Florida was seen as the likely key to the election, there were numerous reports about Obama’s “bubbe problem” in a state with loads of Jewish retirees.

But polls just before the election suggested it was the youngest cohort of voters who were the least likely to support the Democrat, with the over-60 faction strongest in support for Obama. And other polls suggest the youngest Jewish voters are the most likely to identify as conservative.

What gives? Is this an indication of a longterm shift in Jewish voting that will become more apparent in years to come? If so, why is it happening, especially since younger voters in general seem to be moving in the other direction?  Is it just a function of changing Jewish demographics as the proportion of the Orthodox grows among younger voters, or is something else at work here?

*  And the Orthodox-non-Orthodox split.

No secret here: Orthodox voters are much likelier to vote Republican than the non-Orthodox, and that gap seems to be widening. But Obama also did better with Orthodox voters than John Kerry did four years ago. Is it all about Israel, or are domestic issues like government support for religious charities a factor?  What about the whole constellation of “values issues?”

The Democrats  believe they have a chance to win back Orthodox voters.  Is that realistic, or are they hallucinating?  If, as some analysts say, the Christian right is on the ropes, politically speaking, what does that mean for Jewish forces that are allied with that faction?

*  Where does Israel fit in?

The perception in the broader political world is that Israel is the end-all and be-all of Jewish politics, but studies have always refuted that notion. Still, it was clear that this year, the significance of Israel in the election seemed to reach a new low (look at the American Jewish Committee poll in September).

Is that because Israel is not as important to generations of Jews who don’t remember its birth and struggles for survival?  Or because Jewish voters simply assumed both presidential candidates were fine on Israel, so they could focus on other issues, especially a sinking economy? Is it because of the widely discussed gap between Israel-focused Jewish leaders and the Jewish grassroots, more concerned about close-to-home issues?

And what does that mean for the future of the pro-Israel movement?

If you’re a political scientist interested in Jewish politics and have some money to spend on survey research, Election 2008 could be a real gold mine.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

The Orthodox Union has jumped to the defense of a lame-duck administration  whose holiday snafu is the object of a lot of snarky humor.

This week several news outlets were chortling about the fact that  invitations to the White House Hanukkah party were sent on…well, Christmas cards. At least that’s the impression conveyed by an image of a big evergreen being hauled by horse-drawn cart to the White House, with the label “White House Christmas Tree, 2008,” just in case anybody didn’t get the idea.

OU public policy director Nathan Diament, writing in his blog, didn’t see anything funny about the reaction.

As Diament accurately points out,  “each year the competition is intense among Jewish leaders and notables (not to mention  would-be leaders and notables) to get invited to the event. And each year, The White House has made sure to ’spread the wealth’ and invite new people from across the spectrum of U.S. Jewry - including many who disagree with the President’s policies.”

Making that kind of “gracious hospitality the subject of jest is chutzpah of the highest order,”  he admonished.

In a response to the New York Post, which could get a Pulitzer for breaking the Hanukkah-gate story, the White House said the mixup was “something that just slipped through the cracks.”

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

President George W. Bush, who must be busy packing cartons at the White House and selecting a mover, also found time this week to issue a few presidential pardons and commutations.  But those hoping convicted spy Jonathan Pollard would be among them were quickly disappointed.

The list of recipients includes a cocaine distributor, a bank embezzler and someone convicted of improperly using food stamps, but no spies.

Perhaps remembering the huge controversy stirred up by former President Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich in the waning days of his presidency eight years ago, Bush steered clear of potentially controversial pardons and commutations – which pretty much precluded action on Pollard, who is starting his 24th year in prison for spying for Israel.

Pollard’s supporters have organized a White House call-in campaign in recent weeks, but his name has not surfaced among likely recipients.  While President Bush could sign additional pardons and commutations before turning over the White House keys to Barack Obama,  there’s no indication he’s planning on bucking a defense and intelligence establishment that remains vehemently opposed to releasing Pollard.

One big unknown: will Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in Washington for a farewell visit before leaving office himself, make anything more than a pro-forma pitch for Pollard’s release?  Esther Pollard, Jonathan’s outspoken wife, called the trip a “golden opportunity” to win Pollard’s release in a letter to the prime minister, according to the Israeli media.  So far, there’s no indication Olmert has been pushing the issue hard during his meetings here.

Pollard’s cause has largely evaporated from the to-do lists of major Jewish organizations – in part because of its association with far-right forces in Israel. Pollard himself, of course, claims that major Jewish groups here have never really pushed for his release.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

In the current issue, the Jewish Week examined the reaction of a worried Jewish left (read the story here) to a Barack Obama administration that some fear may be shaping up as too centrist for their taste.  But what about the Jewish right?

In some pretty obvious ways, Jews who oppose new peace concessions to the Palestinians and the Syrians were set back on November 4 with the election of a candidate who promised to make Mideast peace a priority from day one of his administration.

In several conversations with pro-Israel hardliners over the weekend, what emerged is this: many are not overly worried Obama will succeed in that goal. And if he doesn’t, they believe it will lay out their arguments much more starkly than in the past.

“Obviously, new negotiations will fail because the Palestinian leadership is simply not ready for peace,” said an official with one staunchly anti-peace process group.  “And when that happens, it will be one more step toward a widespread understanding that pushing Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians or to others is a dead end street.”

For eight years, groups opposed to new land-for-peace deals have labored under a contradiction: the Bush administration was applauded by hardline pro-Israel leaders for mostly leaving  Israel alone, yet it went beyond its predecessors in at least proclaiming the need  for rapid creation of a Palestinian state.

An Obama administration without those contradictions will be easier to forcefully oppose, they believe. And if the White House puts the squeeze on Israel over issues like illegal settlement outposts, it could provoke a reaction from center-right pro-Israel groups that generally fell into line behind the Bush administration even when it made noises about fulfilling it’s Mideast “road map” peace plan by January.

That analysis might prove accurate if the Obama administration leaps headlong into major Israeli-peace initiatives.   But few expect that to happen; instead, Obama is likely to make a few initial statements about the need for a change in U.S. policy, possibly appoint a high-level special envoy to the region – and then put the issue on the back burner, at least on the presidential level,  while he copes with a disastrous economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That will anger the pro-Israel left – and it won’t do the pro-Israel right much good, either.  But the Jewish center is likely to be perfectly comfortable with that approach, since it supports a stronger U.S. peace role – but is distracted and worried, like most other Americans, by the current economic crisis.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

Has there every been so melancholy a meeting between an Israeli prime minister and an American president as the one that will take place here in Washington next week?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, now a mere caretaker leader as he awaits the next act in the drama surrounding his scandal-driven downfall, and President George W. Bush, two months away from retirement and a questionable legacy, will meet amid almost universal speculation that the results will be purely personal, not diplomatic.

Each wanted to leave office with Israeli-Palestinian peace a trophy on his legacy shelf; instead  both are departing amid speculation they will be remembered for other things - Bush for the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, Olmert for an assortment of scandals.

Bush said creating a Palestinian state by the end of this term was a top goal, but critics said he invested very little in making that happen – aided, of course, by a badly divided Palestinian Authority that  could hardly make a deal when Gaza was controlled by rocket-launching terrorists.

Olmert came out more forthrightly than any of his predecessors for an Israeli withdrawal from almost all of the West Bank, but also undermined any possible movement toward peace by routinely approving new settlements, according to critics.

Both are leaving office with record low public support, spurned even by their own parties.

At next week’s White House meeting, they will discuss Iran, the bilateral U.S.-Israel relationship, Israel’s foreign aid, Lebanon and other issues.  But will anybody pay attention? Maybe their farewell meeting isn’t about diplomacy at all, but about commiseration.

James Besser in Washington

(Return to Jewish Week Homepage)

It’s been an anomaly of Jewish life since 2003: Jews have been more opposed to the Iraq war than almost any other group, and yet Jewish organizations have been mostly silent on the subject. Among major Jewish groups, only the Reform movement has called for an end to the conflict, and they have done so with exquisite caution.

We’ve written about the reasons for this silence many times: a lack of consensus within big, politically diverse Jewish groups; uncertainty about what a quick pullout would mean for a vulnerable Israel; a reluctance to cross swords with an embattled administration; arguments that the Iraq war is just not relevant to the core missions of the Jewish groups.

But it’s also true that the silence coming from Jewish board rooms reflects the national mood.  Polls show strong opposition to the conflict – but the antiwar movement has been relatively quiet and fringy.

Now a group of Jewish activists hopes to change that.  The Shalom Center in Philadelphia, the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring and Jewish Currents will hold a day-long “Call to Conscience for the American Jewish Community” in New York on Sunday.

The lineup includes Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Jeremy Ben-Ami of the new J Street political action committee and lobby, former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).

Also on tap: Sammie Moshenberg, Washington director for the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) and Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center (See Waskow’s Jewish Week op-ed here).

The event smacks of a Vietnam-era “teach in.” The goal, organizers say, is to galvanize a new wave of antiwar activism, with the Jewish community in the front ranks.

But that effort faces some big obstacles, starting with a deepening economic crisis that has pushed almost every other issue off the table – for Jews and for American voters in general.

Concerns about the Iraq war almost fell off the charts in September’s American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish public opinion – and that was before the stock market started dropping in earnest and before unemployment started its rapid climb.

And Jewish groups are scrambling to survive in what has become a potentially catastrophic philanthropic climate. If they were were afraid of offending big donors by taking an anti-war stance before, how likely are they to go out on that particular limb now?

The available evidence suggests the Jewish grassroots are strongly opposed to the war, but in the absence of a large and mainstream anti-war movement, how likely are people to get involved, especially when they’re watching their retirement accounts go up in smoke and wondering how to pay the next tuition bill?

Anti-war leaders say we have to connect the dots, and that the astronomical costs of fighting two wars for years are a big part of the economic meltdown.

That may be true, but there’s little evidence anybody is paying much attention outside a core of activists.

This Sunday’s event in New York aims to change that; the jury’s out on the question of whether planners can succeed in rousing a Jewish community with a lot of other things on its mind.