George Orwell And Israel's 'Democratic' Occupation Of The West Bank

Two Manhattan rabbis challenge AIPAC's linguistic fraud and culture of euphemism.

By Peter Beinart | Feb. 12, 2014 | 3:00 PM

B’nai Jeshurun, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, is an unusual place. First, because it is a non-Orthodox synagogue overflowing with young Jews. Second, because its rabbis say publicly about Israel what many other American rabbis only whisper. And rabbis like that often risk losing their jobs.

The most recent threat began a couple of weeks ago, after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio privately told representatives from AIPAC, “when you need me to stand by you in Washington or anywhere, I will answer the call.” In response, two of the rabbis at BJ (as it is known) signed a letter of protest, which declared, “AIPAC speaks for Israel’s hard-line government and its right-wing supporters, and for them alone; it does not speak for us.” Now those rabbis are under attack from some of their own congregants, who have written a letter of their own.

(Full disclosure: I too signed the letter to de Blasio. I am friendly with the BJ rabbis, and with some of their congregational critics. I frequent BJ on Purim and Simchat Torah, though my children find the candy selection better elsewhere).

The letter chastising Rabbis Roly Matalon and Felicia Sol is illuminating. “AIPAC,” it declares, “works with Congress and leaders in the Executive branch to support the government of Israel” and “as believers in democracy and because the government of Israel is democratically elected by the citizens of Israel, we support its duly elected government.”

"As believers in democracy." That phrase, it’s worth remembering, is not being employed to defend Israel’s policies inside the green line. The key dispute between AIPAC and the BJ rabbis is over whether American Jews should publicly challenge Israeli policy in the West Bank. The incensed congregants say no because “as believers in democracy,” they publicly support the right of Israel’s “democratically elected” government to pursue whatever policies in the West Bank it desires.

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