Friday, September 9, 2005
Congratulations to our friends at the Jewish Russian Telegraph who have made a splash today on the pages of Opinion Journal, with The Russians Are Coming - The newest Jewish immigrants vote Republican. A snip:
To judge by his public statements and writings, Mr. Lowenthal's idea of a faithful Jew is someone who opposes the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court, supports gay rights, abortion and euthanasia, and demands a strong separation of church and state. After all, as Mr. Lowenthal concluded approvingly in a July op-ed for the Jewish Advocate, Jews are "the most liberal" and "the least religious people in America."
Imagine his consternation when an avalanche of emails from Russian Jews began to pour in to the Web site of the Jewish Russian Telegraph, a daily blog, in response to his article. About 100 people wrote to say that Mr. Lowenthal needed to stop making "outrageous statements" on behalf of people whom he doesn't represent.
Alex Koifman, who arrived in the U.S. from Belarus in 1978, and whom Mr. Lowenthal trained for his position as a board member at the Boston AJC, criticized his old teacher for overstepping his bounds, saying: "Since when are these concerns [abortion, gay rights, and church-state separation] concerns that are specific to the Jewish community? These are the Left's concerns."...
Background posts at JRTelegraph are here, here and here.
Now personally, I'm not in favor of bashing Larry Lowenthal -- a person who I'm sure has given a great deal to the community -- on a personal level, but if this kerfuffle helps serve as a wake-up call to mainstream Jewish groups that they ought to broaden their horizons a bit and start treading very, very lightly when it comes to taking positions on divisive domestic political issues of no particular "Jewish" interest, then so much the better.
A lot of immigrant groups are bringing entirely fresh looks at what used to be "package deals" on issue stances. They don't have the default party loyalty that some American groups have been used to for decades and they're going to be applying an entirely fresh coat of paint to the marketplace of ideas. That can only be to the good.
Hopefully at some point in the future, the AJC and the Russian Community will have a long sit-down to talk and break-bread together. I'm predicting a lot of borscht in Larry Lowenthal's future.
