This week's column by NY Jewish Week's editor/publisher Gary Rosenblatt, is uncharacteristically bold in defending the Manhattan JCC against an attack by a group that claims the JCC is in league with the anti-Israel BDS movement. The protesters are particularly peeved at the JCC's choices in screening certain films, such as some featured in the Other Israel Film Festival.Rosenblatt begins with a very nuanced reference to Theodore Bikel (Meretz USA's board chair, pictured at left) who supports the boycott by Israeli performers of the new theater in the settlement of Ariel. As Rosenblatt indicates, Bikel is against any boycott of Israel proper. This column is entitled "Advocacy Gone Awry" and includes the following subhead: "Bid against JCC in Manhattan film festival part of disturbing trend."
Coincidentally, reporter Steward Ain, in a long analytical piece, also intelligently discusses BDS and explicitly explores Meretz USA's position in support of boycotting West Bank settlements but not Israel as a whole. This article is entitled "Consensus Seen Taking Shape On Boycotts," with the following descriptive subhead: "In wake of Brandeis Hillel action, a new formulation on who’s in the big tent."
1 comments:
What is the big tent, and who is entitled to define what it is? Its effect is to ostracise individuals and groups, and to block thoughtful open and thoughtful consideration of significant and principled lines of thinking. If someone considers modifying certain views -- or even ventures into a thought experiment of hypothetically changing those views, their status as "within the tent," and the information which is in circulation about what being in or out of the tent means, pre-admonishes and implicitly threatens them that they risk being ostracised by and excluded from "true Jewry"; that they are toying with 'treasonous' dissent, and are about to join what has been delineated as Jewry's enemy. Those whose views entitle them to remain within the tent are implicitly pre-scripted to reject and exclude such dissenters as adversaries and turncoats. This assigning of friend/enemy/turncoat/dupe identities induces and sustains deep psychological manipulation that hinders rather than supports objectivity and fairness. It is entirely possible to strongly oppose BDS, without erecting an inaccurate, alientating or demonizing emotional barrier against those who advocate BDS. Peace requires human acceptance of, respect for, and coexistence with, people of princciple whose views are emphatically different from one's own. It is time to invite and embrace peace.
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