The JCC Follies: Fiddling While Israel Burns
By Marilyn Penn
Oct. 7, 2008
In the first three months of 2008, Israel was condemned by the U.N. for human rights violations 635 times. To put this in proper perspective, Sudan, with its raging genocide in Darfur, was condemned 280 times and North Korea 60 times. This past September, Ahmadinejad addressed the U.N. with the following words:
” The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner….This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small, acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will….Today the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters.”
This anti-semitic diatribe, inspired by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was greeted by applause in the international temple of the world community while outside, numerous American academic and religious institutions feted Ahmadinejad with dinners, interviews and more validation for spewing his vitriol on our shores. Add to this the very real horror of Iran putting the finishing touches on its nuclear capabilities and its concommitant aim to destroy the state of Israel, and one would guess that Jewish institutions would be redoubling their efforts to heighten public awareness of these immediate dangers.
Instead, the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Manhattan has chosen to spend its money on its second annual Other Israel Film Festival, dedicated to showcasing the lives of Arab citizens of Israel. In addition to screening films, the JCC will have a daylong program of discussions and workshops focusing on Building Bridges between Jewish and Arab Israeli cultures. There’s nothing that Jewish organizations enjoy more than “dialogue,” even when it remains a monologue as long as the other side refuses to participate. There’s no need to wonder about how many Arab films or speakers will be included in this festival questioning the policies of Palestinian leadership and deploring the Arab government sponsorship of terrorists for the past half century. Although these events are scheduled for November, they seem designed to pereptuate the liberal Jewish desire to beat their own breasts far longer than the Ten Days of Awe.
Jewish communal organizations depend on charitable contributions for their mandate. During the most severe economic crisis of our lifetimes, it’s essential for us to prioritize how these organizations are spending our collective money. Given the climate of rising anti-semitism throughout the world, on American and European university campuses, in the hallowed halls of the United Nations, in the churches of many Christian denominations, including that of Jeremiah Wright - shouldn’t we Jews be making the case for an Israel whose human rights far exceed those of any of its neighbors? Is this really the time for the JCC to be addressing the pimples of a tiny country than in a mere sixty years has achieved miracles of scientific, technological, industrial, medical, sociological and academic prowess? The time to sponsor the next festival of the “Other Israel,” is not this November but that future time when the Ahmadinejads of the world are no longer hailed and supported but reviled and defeated. That will be a time when Palestinians in Arab countries outside of Israel have the same freedom as the Jewish state has given them to be citizens, to vote, to be members of Parliament and to acknowledge the only country in the middle east that has so dignified them by condemning the refusal of their own leadership and that of almost all Arab countries to acknowledge the right of Israel to its very existence.
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