Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

For far too long, the major Jewish organizations have been controlled by people who don’t have the politics, interests, history or temperament of the American Jews they claim to represent. Although everyone always knew that the ADL, AJC and AIPAC were almost Jurassic in their approach to American Jewish politics and Israel and only represented a narrow sliver of American Jewry, it all came to the surface when Abe Foxman angrily yelled at a student criticizing the ADL’s stand against the Armenian Genocide resolution that he doesn’t “represent you nor the Jewish community! I represent the donors.” Sure, we all knew this, but at least it was good to know that Foxman’s suppression of free debate about Israel (see Tony Judt and the Polish Consulate) and smearing of respected academics (Mearsheimer and Walt) wasn’t being done in our name.

And today, we are on the verge of having the presumptive Democratic nominee – who’s likely to win the election – who has little to no support from the Jewish Establishment. It’s not surprising that Obama hasn’t been able to win the support of prominent Jewish fund raisers and players in Democratic circles. After all, the Clintons have been the number one Democrats since 1992, and have had the strong support of the Jewish community all that time. It also didn’t hurt that the Clintons enthusiastically supported a series of absurd AIPAC-promoted initiatives that did nothing to improve Israel’s security and only inflamed the situation more – like Clinton’s support for an “undivided Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital. Obama, on the other hand, hasn’t been kissing the ring of Haim Saban since the early 1990s, and also because of his middle name, association with Jeremiah Wright and some things said by advisers, is now perceived to have a “Jewish problem.” Of course, Obama hasn’t actually gone very far off the reservation about Israel. He still went to AIPAC and assured them that Israel is our most important ally and so on and so forth.

But today, as it now appears impossible for Clinton to get the nomination, I can’t help but smile that the candidate who the AJC criticized for insisting that Israel take risky steps for peace, the candidate that Haim Saban said was only 1/10th as qualified as Clinton, the one who makes AIPAC “uncomfortable” and the one that the Jewish Establishment has rallied against is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Of course, I expect plenty of these types to come out for McCain and insist that four more years of reckless hawkishness is exactly what American Jews and Israel needs. But considering that younger American Jews don’t vote in the narrowly sectarian manner that AIPAC and the AJC would want us to, and that the overwhelming majority of Jews are Democrats, hopefully this election could signal the end of an leadership class who have served their constituents so poorly.

Phil Weiss sums it up the best:

Will Obama be as “good for the Jews” as Hillary? No. But I bet younger Jews aren’t asking that selfish question. They don’t feel themselves to be outsiders, and I imagine that many of them see our tragic Israel/Iraq policy, that deathly double-play combination of Pollack-to-Kristol-to-Perle, as the Jewish establishment at work. I often think of what Michael Walzer said at the Center for Jewish History last year. For 3000 years, “we governed only ourselves, as best we could… Sometimes [we were] semi-autonomous… responsible only for ourselves.” Not so good, he added ruefully, at governing others. I’m looking forward to more power-sharing, in a rainbow establishment…