Jewish Double Standards and Hypocrisy Department: Reform Jews Get on the Far Right Bandwagon

But remain staunchly on the left in the U.S.  Mondoweiss reports on a major conference of the Union for Reform Judaism:

But Natan Sharansky? Sharansky is a rightwing Israeli leader who chairs One Jerusalem, which has worked to kill the two-state solution, supposedly precious to liberal Jews. And Bill Kristol– WTF! Kristol is the neoconservative leader who pushed the Iraq war, writing that “Israel’s fight against terrorism is our fight.” Kristol has backed Israeli colonies through the West Bank.

This demonstrates the conservatism of even Reform Jews when it comes to Israel. Reform Jewish leader Eric Yoffie attacked Richard Goldstone months after the Gaza horror. Reform Jewish leader Rabbi David Saperstein criticized J Street for taking a fairly mild stand against settlements. And J Street has pulled back its criticisms of Israel because it has pitched its tent inside the Jewish community and the Jewish community is reactionary on the Israel question. So it follows that at a time when Israel is losing credibility around the world, Reform circles the wagons, and welcomes rightwingers.

So President Obama (another headliner guest at the conference) is sharing the floor far right Jewish ethnonationalists. Forgive me for being cynical when we hear the constant refrain that the reason that Jews are on the left is because of “Jewish values” of tolerance and social justice. This is just another example of a repeated theme here, that Jewish ethics is fundamentally about what is good for the Jews. The Jewish culture of the left in the U.S. is ethnic warfare against the traditional people and culture of America, while Jewish attitudes about Israel justify ethnic warfare against the Palestinians—including tolerance of ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Jewish values as ethnic warfare.