Student arm works in harmony and occasional discord with young lobby
When he attended the first-ever national J Street U conference in October 2010, Aaron Weinberg felt like an outsider. But that changed last week, when Weinberg attended J Street’s second national conference in Washington, DC.
“Last year the [student] conference was in the basement of a hotel, really an insurgency on the American Jewish scene,” said Weinberg, now a freshman at Brandeis University. “This year, we’re at the DC conference center,” the second-largest building in the nation’s capital.
Weinberg was one of more than 500 college students from 128 campuses at the national conference of the self-billed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. The conference highlighted a broad range of political and social justice issues and drew over 2000 total attendees, meaning that roughly one in four participants was a student.
J Street U, the college arm of J Street, has grown significantly since J Street’s first conference a year and a half ago, in October 2009. At that conference, J Street U was less than two months old, and about 200 students joined a conference that topped out at 1,500 attendees. Since then, J Street U has built a network of 25 campus chapters, and J Street U Director Daniel May says 25 more are on the way.
“What J Street is creating is very appealing to very many young Jews.” May said. “There is a real hunger among young people for this organization. I count myself as part of this generation that sees their Judaism as constituted around democracy and freedom. This is an organization where people can bring that together.”
Students’ roles in the conference reflected their numbers. J Street U President Moriel Rothman spoke at the conference’s opening plenary, introducing author Peter Beinart—one of the night’s honorees. Beinart wrote a controversial column last June attacking the “American Jewish Establishment” for “failing” young Jews by telling them to unconditionally support Israel. J Street U endorses that message by hosting events on campus that encourage open debate of Israeli policy.
Later in the plenary, students representing several regions took the podium, each one announcing the names of all of the campuses represented at the conference in their region. As campuses were announced, students from each one stood and cheered.
“When they announced the number of students and campuses, I thought I was going to cry,” said Ben Murane, a former volunteer for Brit Tzedek v’Shalom—a liberal Zionist organization that merged with J Street in 2009. Murane said that he used to worry about his movement producing young leadership.
The conference kicked off on Saturday, Feb. 26, but 85 students came early for the J Street U Shabbaton—a Shabbat conference dedicated to students’ concerns that began one day earlier. Weinberg, who was one of the Shabbaton’s organizers, said that students’ strong turnout “shows the strength of our movement. It shows that it’s growing.”
In addition to the Shabbaton and appearances at the plenary, students spoke on panels during the conference and had their own session on Sunday night.
Simone Zimmerman, a sophomore from the University of California, Berkeley, has been to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual Policy Conference and to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. J Street’s treatment of students is different, she said, “because they had specific J Street U programming for us and they didn’t do it at a time when the rest of the conference was going on. They gave us special time aside from the other plenaries and breakout sessions.”
Zimmerman spoke on one of the more controversial panels at the conference—a discussion of the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction companies that fund the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Though J Street is opposed to BDS, J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami said during the opening plenary that J Street is seeking to encourage a broad debate on Israel at the conference. In addition to Zimmerman, the panel included two anti-BDS speakers and the president of Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports BDS.
On the panel, Zimmerman spoke about the detrimental, polarizing effect of last year’s controversial BDS fight in the student government at UC Berkeley. “I don’t feel like I have a strong, exact answer about BDS,” she said later in an interview with New Voices.
After feeling hesitant about speaking on the panel, Zimmerman was glad she participated. “I felt really good about it,” she said. “Unlike what we had [at UC Berkeley, I felt like there was a very healthy debate going on.”
Although students were front-and-center for much of the conference, Rothman—the J Street U president—noted that J Street often disagrees with its student arm.
“There’s perpetual tension,” he said. “There has always been and there should always be. I think it‘s the role of J Street U to be a little more radical and push the envelope more. J Street U can be more purely value-oriented because we don’t have the political concerns that J Street does.”
But though Rothman’s group prioritizes values over politics, he thinks students should have more input into J Street’s political decisions.
“I would love if J Street would turn to us with policy questions,” he said. “They don’t and I understand that. I understand that they have their things going on, they have their policy going on, but I would love students to be engaged more.”
Despite these qualms, Rothman defended J Street, pointing to its importance to J Street U’s goals.
“You wouldn’t be in J Street U if you weren’t a supporter of J Street,” he said. “We believe that politics are necessary, that they’re instrumental. We very much support the role of J Street.
May—the director of J Street U—noted that J Street U’s literature reflects its broad value set.
“While J Street materials all say simply, ‘Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace,’ J Street U brochures put it like this, “Pro-Israel: Pro-Peace, Pro-Democracy, Pro-Two States, Pro-Justice, Pro-Human Rights, Pro-Palestinian,’” he said. “It’s not a different set of values. It’s a matter of emphasis. What is important to [J Street U] as a movement is a commitment to Israel and to social justice. That is a crucial nexus at which our work happens. I don’t think that’s the crucial nexus at which J Street’s work happens. They’re mutually complementary.”
Melanie Robbins, a senior from Drew University, appreciated that she could express her values within a larger movement.
“I grew up super-Zionist, but I have this internal dilemma about human rights,” she said. “Until now, I felt really alienated, but this is the first time I’ve felt a part of something, a group of Jews coming from the same place, creating a movement that reflects our values.”
David AM Wilensky is a senior at Drew University, and the web editor of New Voices.
