“The Jew in America in the age of King Oil” faces a threat to the survival of Israel and his own survival as part of American communal life. But “tear for our very survival — and the narrow perspective that fear some times creates — con increase our danger rather than our security,” according to Sen. Carl Levin (D. Mich.) in a speech before the Jewish Reconstructionist Foundation here.
Levin defined the danger in terms of what appears to be an erosion of America’s traditional support for Israel at a time of oil scarcity and rising energy costs, and American Jewry’s reaction to it . He cited as an example the Middle East plan recently offered by a Republican Presidential aspirant, former Texas Gov. John Connally, who linked oil to a “just and comprehensive peace” in the Middle East at Israel’s expense.
In essence, Levin said, Connally was saying that “oil and idealism do not mix.” He added, “If Israel stands between Governor Connally’s America and a secure oil supply — then Israel must go.”
CITES FACTIONAL INTERESTS
The response to Connally, Levin said, raises in America “the fear that the factions which help shape national policy in this nation are more protective of their own interests than they are of the national interest … If Americans think that American – Jewish influence is the cause of a foreign policy which brings us long gas lines and expensive heating oil at home; and; if a Connally takes it to the hustings, then in this age I fear that we will hear that voice growing louder and louder and being heard in wider and wider circles. “Continuing, the Senator stated that “As a public official, I get questions which clearly ask if your interests as a Jew conflict with our interests as Americans, how can we be sure that you will represent us as Americans?”
On the other hand, he added, “I get mail from members of the Jewish community which very clearly says, ‘Carl, you are one of us and we know we can count on you to take care of us on this.’ How do I answer these two disparate sets of questions? How do I affirm my identity as a Jew and my identity as on American?”
According to Levin, the answer “lies not so much in the resolution of the tension that our multiple identities impose upon us as in the ways we analyze our problems and privately and publicly state our solutions.”
He observed that as members of families “we seek to resolve the competing demands of our multi – dimensional identities” not “from the exclusive perspective of father/mother or son/daughter or husband/wife” but by “creating solutions which benefit all our component identities …. As members of family units, I believe that all of us have confronted that problem and found ways to resolve it. As members of the Jewish community, I am not altogether sure that we have always demonstrated the same skill.”
AWARENESS OF MULTIPLE GROUP MEMBERSHIP
He cited as an example widespread Jewish opposition to proposals to abolish the electoral college and replace it with a system of direct election of the President. Levin said he was persuaded that the dangers of electing a candidate who did not receive a plurality of votes outweighed any potential impact on the roles that minorities play. “We need to recognize that a policy affects us in all our multiple roles and identifications,” he said. “What benefits the Jewish community should be one factor — among several — that have and should be considered when we, as Jews who live in this land, decide what policies to support.”
Continuing, he said: “I am suggesting that we, as members of the Jewish community, must be particularly aware of our multiple-group memberships. A failure to achieve that awareness would needlessly provide ammunition to those who would charge us with divided loyalty or a too narrow perspective and analysis. And that ammunition will be turned against us and against Israel.”
Levin cited, as another example, the response of American Jews to the recent Middle East activities of Rev. Jesse Jackson. “If find the statements of Jesse Jackson to be offensive — and we should — we must not react by saying that Blacks have no role to play in foreign policy or by threatening to withdraw our support from civil rights organizations. Rather we must say that those who stand with Rev. Jackson are not playing their role in foreign policy responsibly but that we will continue to fervently support those civil rights activities which we continue to see as in the national interest…
“We should, in other words, offer and defend policies in terms of their value to the American ‘Sancta’ which has made Jews in America part of the policy-making process. That style of defense does not minimize the value of our united voices — and it does so much to increase the validity that others hear in our words.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
