The dovish group J Street has lost its bid to gain admission to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations by a suprisingly large margin of 22-17. Many were outraged, including Union for Reform Judaism leader Rick Jacobs who threatened to quit the group, which he called a “facade.” But we have Facebook to…
Well, I certainly never had that happen before. In years of moderating sometimes heated public conversations, never has a panelist just walked off the stage. But that’s what Commentary editor John Podhoretz did Monday night. And I’m still trying to figure out why. Of course, I expected a feisty evening when the venerable 92nd Street…
Boasting an impressive growth in numbers and a newly achieved acceptance into the mainstream Jewish organizational world, J Street launched its annual conference with a new campaign aimed at bringing Jewish Americans to endorse a two-state solution for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. “Five years ago we had half the people in a basement of a hotel,”…
(JTA) — The story that this year’s J Street conference schedule tells is, typically enough, about getting Israel and the Palestinians to a two-state solution. Between the lines is another narrative as urgent as peacekeeping to the liberal pro-Israel group: getting J Street into the establishment. The second objective received a major boost earlier this…
Among the many political fault lines unearthed by the debate over American military intervention in Syria, one touched directly on the internal rift running through J Street, the left-leaning pro-Israel lobby. The group has prided itself in the past for “having the president’s back” as he seeks to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. But in this case,…
J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group barely five years old and once shunned by top Israeli officials, is claiming as a victory the fact that Chuck Hagel was confirmed as defense secretary despite opposition from more conservative Jewish groups. In the week when the most influential Jewish-American group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,…
Mazel tov, Benjamin “King Bibi” Netanyahu. You’re officially the most influential Jew in the world, according to the Jerusalem Post’s just-released ranking of the world’s 50 most significant Semites. And good on you, (Jon Stewart #7). The Post thinks you’ve got more juice than Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (#9) and Eric Cantor (#19) —and all…
Emergency Committee for Israel board member Bill Kristol told an Upper West Side audience last night that President Obama has “moved back to the center” on Israel. The statement, one of a number of kind words Kristol had for Obama, came just two months after ECI released a video calling the president’s Israel policy “dangerous.”…
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