The conference is under way. Rachel Lerner, the head of the conference itself, says that there are more than 2000 people here. I’ll buy that. It’s packed. The corner nearest the press seating I chose is chock-full of college students. I wonder how many of them them are here.
Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is giving his welcoming remarks/pep-talk. “Tikkun Olam, etc.” “In 3,000 years, our forebears have insisted that we do not continue for continuity’s sake alone.” Etc. There’s a lot of clapping.
I’ve seen Saperstein speak before. I’ve even met him in person before. And I’m still surprised by his speaking abilities. If nothing else–and there’s plenty else–he’s a powerful and persuasive speaker.
The passion in this room is palpable. Every other sentence Saperstein utters gets two or three people excited enough to start clapping. And their clapping is infectious. And so their tables clap. And then the whole room is clapping.
“Your attraction to people on the left is not that your positions are different from others on the left,” Saperstein is saying. But, he says, the attraction is in the political, realistic, mainstream cache J Street maintains. Saperstein says–and I agree–that J Street’s ability to take a radical stand when it counts come from its ability to take mainstream positions on other issues. This puts J Street, of course, in stark contrast to other Jewish lefty groups in the US.
“J Street’s pro-Israel pro-peace approach is right… is needed now more than ever,” Saperstein says. “Neither humanity, nor the countries of Middle East are the prisoners of a bitter and unremitting past.”
Now J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami is talking. Among other groups he cites, he says that there are thousands of Jewish college students (holler!) involved through J Street U across the country.
And I just realized the J Street U Director Daniel May is sitting right next to me.
Jeremy Ben-Ami is now in apologetics mode about J Street, reinforcing adamantly that the group is pro-Israel.
And from there, he transitions into this: Israel wants all the land from the Med. sea to the Jordan, it wants to be democratic and it wants to be Jewish. “It cannot have all three,” he says. “It must give up the land to have peace.”
He is excited that there are those who disagree with J Street here, from the right and from the left. Disagreement is all a part of the Jewish tradition.
Now he mentions that there are “nearly 500” college students here. He says that they’r–we’re–here because the spirit of open debate attracts young people. Later, some J Street U leaders take the stage and tell us that there are more than 120 college campuses represented at the conference. So take that, old farts.
And just before that, he made a little reference to Birthright’s ludicrous refusal to have J Street U Birthright trip–which we covered to death over here. I thought Daniel May’s head was gonna pop off when he said that.
There’s more to this opening plenary to come, but I’m gonna end the post here. There may be more from me later tonight. If not, Ben Sales and I will be here for the rest of the weekend reporting like there’s no tomorrow.
