At the CJF General Assembly: American Jewry is Coming of Age

North American Jewry has begun to come of age politically. But this development is being accompanied by birth pangs of emerging new perceptions Jews have of themselves in the political process and of the agenda they should be setting for themselves on the American political scene to transform their potential power into actual power.

American Jews are attempting to determine where to go from here and how to shift gears in moving from what was a traditionally monolithic single-issue community focusing on Israel to a multi-issue community involved in broad and diverse public policy issues on the American scene, in addition to continuing concern for Israel.

More than ever before, Jews are becoming multi-issue oriented. They are beginning to perceive themselves and are being perceived by others as more than a group of Americans who call themselves Jews, worship in synagogues rather than in churches, and are particularly supportive of Israel. American Jews are also moving away from their traditional identification with and support of the Democratic Party and political liberalism and are beginning to find a home in the Republican Party and political conservatism. Jews are increasingly voting on issues rather than party labels and personalities.

These developments were dealt with at a plenary session at the 54th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations, attended by some 3,000 Jewish communal leaders from the United States and Canada. The session was titled “The Coming of Age of North American Jewry: A Political Affirmation,” and was also the theme of the Assembly, which ended yesterday.

EXERTING GREATER POWER IN POLITICAL ARENA

The speakers at the session — Kenneth Bialkin, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Howard Friedman, president of the American Jewish Committee, and Theodore Mann, president of the American Jewish Congress — agreed that American Jews are exerting greater power in the political arena because they are learning how to maximize their political participation and input on diverse issues of vital concern not only to Jews but to all Americans.

As a result, many more Americans are supporting Jews on issues of vital concern to Jews as Jews. “It is not organized support I am talking about,” Mann said. “It is simply support that is out there, because we are out there, because we are integrated into the life of the American community, and because we feel as we do.”

He pointed out that he has been “preaching to Jewish audiences that until they knew deep in their gut that America is not Western Europe, they would have no real impact upon American society; that until we truly believed we were not guests in just another Christian country, we would be unable and unwilling to exercise political power we have been guaranteed in this American society.”

Mann observed that the Jewish community has come a long way from the 1930’s and 1940’s, when a potentially powerful Jewish community was unable to translate that power into real power “at the time of our people’s very greatest need.” He noted that it is not possible to pinpoint the time “when most American Jews realized that the roof would not fall in if they vigorously exercised their political power” and “realized that in America a vote is a vote is a vote.”

A DANGER OF JEWISH POWER

But Mann warned that Jewish power — expressed through involvement in organizations in which they work, through Jewish groups with which they affiliate, and through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and through Political Action Committees (PACs) — can prove to be a danger if it is exercised as a single-issue constituency.

It is one thing for Jews to submit to their Congressmen a list of demands on various issues and for Congressmen to support demands on Soviet Jewry and Israel but not necessarily on other issues, because “that is how it works in a pluralistic society,” Mann said.

“But it is quite another thing to seek out legislators who oppose the point of view of the vast majority of American Jews on all interests except Israel, and provide them with substantial financial support.

“In the first case, the legislator is telling us that he agrees with us in part but regrettably not on everything. In the second case, we are telling the legislator to give us what we want for Israel, that is the litmus test, we don’t really care about anything else. That’s not a message Jews should ever carry. It is hurtful to us to be so perceived, and it’s a false message — it simply is not true.”

BASIS FOR RESPONSE TO JEWISH INTERESTS

Friedman also emphasized that a single-issue community is not effective in the political process if the public perceives that the issue is not grounded in broader issues, such as defending and extending democracy and seeking ways to maintain a world free of totalitarianism.

“Response to interests of Jews is not based on Jewish political power but on Jewish involvement in general issues,” Friedman said. Jewish power is not based on their voting power nor on contributions to political candidates but on the ability to “dip into the currents” of general political power and into issues that concern and affect Americans in general.

The new reality of Jewish political activity, he said, is that “there is a growing movement of an honest difference of approach to issues.” The most important aspect of this development, Friedman said, is that Jews are beginning to shed the ideological restraints that have imposed limitations in the past whereby Jews were automatically identified by themselves and others as Democrats and as liberals.

A NEW REALITY

The prevailing notion in the past was that “Jews as Jews had to be liberals and that a conservative was less than a Jew,” Friedman said. This is no longer so, as more and more Jews are turning to the Republican Party and to conservatism.

He noted that while a majority of Jews voted for the Democratic Party in the last Presidential election, more Jews would have voted for the Republican Party, but the church-state issue in which Republicans were embroiled appeared as more of a danger than the support given to the Democrats by Rev. Jesse Jackson.

One of the problems that Jews have to deal with is how to approach an issue without imposing a moral imperative on which side to take, he said. “A moral imposition on public issues is a danger,” Friedman warned, because it is simplistic. Apartheid, for example, is odious and onerous and should be opposed. But equally important, and an essential part of any approach to dealing with apartheid is what is to replace it so that conditions can be come more tolerable, how this change should take place, and who or what forces are to be entrusted to accomplish the change, Friedman stated. A moralistic approach to apartheid — as well as to other issues such as a nuclear freeze and the sanctuary movement — omits these elements in the equation of what is and what should be, he stated.

Friedman also pointed out that Jews are becoming increasingly aware that anti-Semitism does not all come from the right, as it did in the past. “Anti-Semitism was on the right. Now the repository of anti-Semitism is on the left and we should not continue to be beguiled by the views of the 1930’s and even the 1940’s” about the danger on the right and the righteousness on the left, he said.

A TENDENCY TO BE FIXATED ON THE PAST

In a similar vein, Bialkin noted that there is still a tendency in the community to act as if there are no new developments and to continue to be fixated on past data and answers concerning the Jewish condition in America. He challenged the audience to discern whether the present issues are the same as they were in the past and whether the old answers are still applicable.

Bialkin observed that the coming of age of American Jewry suggests changes in the position, demography and status of Jews as an integral part of changes in the general American society. He traced the changes in the relative power of American Jewry from the days of mass immigration to World War I to the 1930’s “when we couldn’t impact on immigration policies,” to the post-World War II period when Jewish political activism “took off in geometric terms.”

But, Bialkin said, Jews are still concerned that they continue to be perceived as too one-issue oriented, too narrow in their concern for Israel, and, as a result, feel themselves to be too vulnerable and thereby possibly easy targets of a backlash. This, he said, is a “sign of continuing insecurity. But Jews will be singled out whether they are weak or strong. If so, it is better to be strong.”

The strength of the Jewish community lies in its maximum participation in the political process of this country, Bialkin said. He welcomed the diversity in the Jewish community of views and approaches to social problems instead of what he said was formerly a “monolithic unity” as a sign of Jewish political strength and America’s Jewry coming of age.