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Rabbi Jacobs the Wrong Choice to Head Reform

n June 10, Reform will be throwing a big party to celebrate the appointment of their new President, Rabbi Jacobs, who was chosen in the hope he would help boost Reform’s numbers and fundraising.  The appointment has created much controversy because Rabbi Jacobs is an activist on Israel, to the left of Reform’s mainstream.  As Jacobs explained in his Yom Kippur sermon this year, he finds that the “pro-Israel community is frighteningly narrow.” He tarred Israel with ethnic cleansing and segregation and declared if that’s what it means to be pro-Israel, he wants Jewish college students to “run the other way.”
Oddly, it came as a great shock to the Reform powers-that-be who nominated him that many Reform Jews –those who care most about Israel – are unhappy Jacobs is to be the new President.  The Reform board assumed that Rabbi Jacob’s groups of choice, J-Street and the New Israel Fund, are acceptable to Reform Jews and would create no stir.
How wrong they were.
A new poll came out last week, by pollster Frank Luntz, to understand what kind of support for Israel exists these days among American Jews.  The results bring gladness to everyone’s heart in the mainstream pro-Israel community that Rabbi Jacobs dislikes so much.  70% of the respondents were Reform or secular and three quarters of them voted for Obama.
The narrative that settlers are the obstacle to peace is believed by only 12% of American Jews.  Reform Jews believe Israel works for peace, and has a need for self-defense.  Unlike Rabbi Jacobs, 77% supported Israel’s incursion into Gaza to stop the missile attacks. Unlike Rabbi Jacobs, 77% think the Arab-Israel conflict is caused by Palestinian Jew-hatred, not Israel’s actions.  Unlike Rabbi Jacobs, they are not so naïve as to see the Palestinians peace-loving victims mistreated by the mean Israelis.  Two-thirds believe a future Palestinian state would soon attack Israel.  Most heartening of all, when Luntz asked Jews between the ages of 18-29, if “Israel no longer existed tomorrow,” 91% said it would be a “tragedy” and for 21% of them, the destruction of Israel would be the “biggest tragedy of my lifetime.”
How wrong Rabbi Jacobs is, in his approach to Jewish college kids.  Rabbi Jacobs follows J-Street which promotes the line that young Jews are disaffected from Israel because of its mistreatment of Palestinians.  He argues that criticizing Israel is the way to bring young Jews back to the fold.  In his Yom Kippur sermon he even criticized Eli Wiesel for supporting a united Jerusalem.  Rabbi Jacobs ignores the enormous success pro-Israel Jews have accomplished with Birthright Israel and the David Project.  These mainstream groups teach love of Israel and self-defense in the face of the left-wing assault on Israel our kids find on college campuses.
Rabbi Jacobs, J-Street and the New Israel Fund are part of the problem.  They chastise Israel in public on supposed human rights abuses, war crimes, even ethnic cleansing.  J-Street lobbied the White House to not veto a U.N. condemnation of Israel, for the first time in history.  J-Street lobbied Congress to not increase sanctions on Iran.  They lobbied Congress to not condemn Palestinian incitement to hatred.   Rabbi Jacob’s favorite group, the New Israel Fund, contributed to the infamous U.N. Goldstone Report that condemned Israel for war crimes in Gaza. Rabbi Jacobs serves on a board at J-Street and preaches their line to his congregation.  He has promised to bring this vision to Reform when he becomes President.
In all these actions, Rabbi Jacobs is breaking the written guidelines of the Reform Movement, which state: “Oppose efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel and its leaders in domestic and international forums; commend the governments of the United States and Canada for their continued and unconditional support of Israel; Help end the Iranian nuclear threat.”
The outgoing president of Reform, Rabbi Yoffie, knew how to be loyal to his own liberal concerns and politics on Israel without ever crossing the lines that Rabbi Jacobs doesn’t seem to notice.  Rabbi Yoffie called J Street’s Gaza policy, “morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and appallingly naïve.”  Rabbi Yoffie said that efforts to do limited boycotts of Israel focused on towns over the Green line will result in support for the boycotts against all of Israel, and threaten Israel’s survival.  Rabbi Yoffie wrote, “Reject the trap of false moral equivalence, and to never, ever, express contempt for the State and its people.”
Rabbi Jacobs says he doesn’t agree with all of J-Street’s anti-Israel agenda, but he never actually criticizes them in public.  He is too busy lecturing Israel on its supposed moral failings.
His June 10th appointment to head the Reform Movement  is not a cause for celebration.

Karin McQuillan is a member of a Reform synagogue in Carmel, CA who writes extensively on current  Jewish and political issues.

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