Dr. Alex Grobman
Israel National News, May 25, 2023
“Most mainstream Jewish leaders are promoting universalist fantasies—but to bring ‘kumbaya’ to the arena of identity politics is to unilaterally disarm.”
Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, EDS. Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership (New York: Post Hill Press, 2023) ISBN: 978-1-63758-878-9
“This book is long overdue,” assert Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, the editors of this very significant and timely work (Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, New York: Post Hill Press, 2023 ISBN: 978-1-63758-878-9). Why? Because of “The failure of the American Jewish establishment to counter the growing hostility toward the Jewish community,” which “is endangering Jews across the country. This failure is scandalous.”
How did the American Jewish community come to be in such a precarious position? The Jacobs and Goldwasser claim “It is due to a lack of understanding of why Jews are hated and face growing hostility, along with the leaders’ obvious lack of courage. At this time, when strong leadership is urgently needed, we have weak, politicized bureaucrats too often more concerned with their social status, the perks of power, and their organizations’ financial success than with their responsibility to defend the community. As can be seen in their priorities, staffing, and programs, they seem more loyal to a progressive ideology than to the safety of Jews. Refusing to acknowledge the current ugly realities, they double down on failed strategies, hoping foolishly that increased effort will result in success.”
While acknowledging “Jews cannot control the forces arrayed against us, but one thing we should be able to do is influence our own leadership,” Jacobs and Goldwasser declare. And “It is clear that the establishment Jewish organizations —the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, regional Federations, Jewish Community Relations Councils across the country, Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and most rabbis—have failed to respond effectively to these mounting assaults.”
The objective of this collection of 22 essays is to analyze the failure of the Jewish establishment in an open and objective manner. The authors recognize that many Jews will oppose such public criticism, which will be viewed as divisive and will urge a more unified approach instead. Such overt rebuke has been “a near taboo,” yet when Jewish leaders are “right wing Jews,” reproaching them is frequent and even acceptable. “Ironically, for too many American Jews,” they note, “the democratically elected leaders of the Jewish state can be pilloried time and again, but the undemocratically, donor-selected leaders here may not be questioned as this would “break Jewish unity.”
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