There’s a blurry line here at the J Street Conference between press and participant. And between college student and press, insofar as I’m here.
The participants’ badges hang on black lanyards, but the press is easy to spot because of our bright orange–just go New Voices, I’m sure–lanyards ours hang on. Every time I see an orange one, I try to get a look at what press they’re from. There are a surprising number that say “Press: Freelance” or “Press: Blogger” and more still that say they’re from a particular blog with a recognizable name.
And these people are all J Street cheerleaders. It’s not as thought there are a ton of right-wing Israel bloggers here. So this class of people exists in a kind of gray area between press and participant.
J Street Press Secretary Amy Spitalnick and the rest of the J Street team have to know that this gray area exists and they have to know how sizable that contingent is because they’re the ones approving the press passes. On the other hand, J Street has made a number of sessions closed to the press.
Namely, the entire college Shabbaton the preceded the conference, tonight’s J Street U Conversation–which is fine because I wanna go to young professionals happy hour at the same time anyway–and a few other sessions, which I’ll get into below.
So why are the college events closed to the press? We asked Spitalnick about it and she said that J Street’s policy is that these are closed because they are conversations between college students. I don’t think that’s much of a reason to close the events to anyone, much less to New Voices. We are the only press outlet in the country that’s specifically for, about and by Jewish college students.
And to reinforce how frayed the distinction between press and not is, if just about any Jewish college student could be a New Voices writer and/or blogger, what are they doing to make sure that there are no New Voices people registered as students going into these sessions and blogging about it?
There’s a similar oddity to the non-college-specific sessions that are closed to the press. If anyone can be a member of the press now–the wordpress, I mean–by starting their own blog, how do they know there aren’t any bloggers who came as regular conference attendees in those sessions? Will they be barring people from using any electronics in those sessions at all?
Those sessions, by the way are:
Finding Your Voice: Having the Conversation on J Street and Israel in Your Community
I can’t for the life of me figure out why this one is closed to the press. Maybe because it’s a conversation among potential newcomers who won’t stay on-message while discussing how to get J Street started in their community.
Talk About Israel: “My Convictions or My Job”?: A Confidential Forum for Clergy Members
No problems, there. I get that.
Threading the Needle: Reframing the Israel Conversation
From the session description: “Inside the Jewish community and out, conversations about Israel are increasingly being shaped by campaigns built around boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on the one hand and by efforts to counter delegitimization on the other. A number of organizations in the Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace movement–[then it lists some of them, all cosponsors of the conference]–are working collaboratively to frame the conversation differently….”
I think you only need three letters to explain why this one is closed to the press: BDS. J Street is adamantly against BDS, which is has become a major campus issue, so they want to avoid appearances to the contrary.
On the other hand, a later session called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in 2011: Who’s Afraid of the BDS? is open to everyone, so, as with the Finding Your Voice session, it’s not clear to me why this session is closed to the press.
And, of course, all the lobbying stuff on Tuesday is closed to the press.
What confuses me is this: At the opening plenary last night, J Street head honcho Jeremy Ben-Ami said that, unlike AIPAC and other groups of the ilk, J Street’s conference is open to people who don’t totally agree with J Street, from both the right and the left. If that’s case, if a selling point of the organization is openness, dialog and transparency, why are some sessions closed to the press?
Another thing emphasized at the opening plenary was the the number of college students. If the numbers they’ve been citing are true and there are 2000 people here and 500 of them are college students, then a quarter of the conference is made up of students. They’ve been talking a lot about how this is proof that the future of the pro-Israel world is J Street and they’ve said that it’s proof that J Street’s young people are a strong, important part of the organization. Several of them were given a moment of stage time at the opening plenary itself, including J Street U President Moriel Rothman, who got the honor of introducing Peter Beinart–the subject of J Street U’s confernce t-shirts, which say “Beinart’s Army.”
So they want to put a spotlight on the faces of their students, but not on what they may actually have to say.
But we know from last year that J Street U can go off-message and can appear to far to the left of the official policies of J Street. As J Street U was just coming into existence at the last conference, the student board dropped the term “pro-Israel” from their name. If you consult their policies, you’ll see that they’re still pro-Israel, but they did make a point of dropping the term–whatever the reason for that was. (And I’m sure the reason was more innocuous than some of the more paranoid members of the community made it out to be at the time.)
Anyway, them’s my thoughts on that. Y’all got anything to add?
