Like most New Voices editors before me, I’ve felt a compulsion to criticize the Jewish Establishment. And while I may not be as contrary as my predecessor, I–along with the rest of our writers–have had no problem admonishing Hillel, AIPAC, (of course) the ADL or any other large Jewish organization.
So when the American Jewish Committee invited me to an event last year about dissidents in Iran as part of their ACCESS program for young professionals, I was wary. After all, you can’t get more “Establishment” than the AJC. They have all of the criteria down:
- Founded over 50 years ago? Check.
- Has “Combating anti-Semitism” and “Supporting Israel” in its organizational description? Check.
- Based in New York and/or Washington? Check.
- Part of the Conference of Presidents? Check.
- Has a large budget? Check.
But the event’s interesting topic plus the promise of free food attracted me, and when I got there I was surprised. I expected the event (which I covered here) to use dissidents in Iran as a starting point for a discussion about why Iran is dangerous and why we should support Israel. But it wasn’t. It delivered on it promise: highlighting opposition movements and individual activists who were working for democratic change in the Islamic Republic.
Later that year, Slingshot–a fund that awards grants to the fifty most innovative Jewish organizations of the year–named ACCESS as one of its award recipients. Slingshot praised ACCESS for giving young Jews–seriously, no pun intended–access to diplomats, experts and young activists from around the world. And the Iran event was not the only one of its kind: While many ACCESS events deal with specific Jewish/Israel concerns, many others focus on different communities and countries, or seek to build bridges between the Jewish community and others–making good on the part of AJC’s mission statement that speaks of “advanc[ing] human rights and democratic values in the United States and around the world.” For example, ACCESS offers students what looks like a groundbreaking trip to Germany twice a year that explores Berlin’s multicultural scene and focuses on contemporary German-Jewish relations.
And late next month, ACCESS is hosting a weekend conference focusing on, of all things, delegitimization of Israel. While that term has become an uber-buzzword in the Jewish community and usually signals a thinly veiled desire to stifle any criticism of the Jewish state, it seems like ACCESS is trying to do this better than other organizations. In ACCESS’s invitation to me (full disclosure: I’m attending and they’re giving me a subsidy), they wrote that “We seek a diverse, broad base joined through mutual interest in differentiating between criticism of specific policies and delegitimization.” They also made a point of inviting, and paying for, the director of the left-wing Meretz USA to come–which means that they’re investing in small, non-Establishment groups’ perspectives as well. I think, as I’ve written before, that JVP should be included in that group as well, but at least ACCESS is spreading a wide net among Zionist organizations. Registration, by the way, is still open.
The weekend, of course, may end up being the same-old Israel advocacy propaganda that other Establishment organizations are spreading, but I’ll bet that it won’t be. Every time I’ve interacted with ACCESS, it has displayed a genuine effort to open itself to a wide range of perspectives and to involve young people in issues central to AJC’s agenda. Hopefully ACCESS will lead to AJC’s staying at the forefront of the fight for global human rights.
So I don’t care if this post seems uncritical. ACCESS has shown me, so far, that the Establishment does not necessarily have to be parochial, insular and defensive. Large Jewish organizations can do things right, too, and we need to recognize that if we’re going to be so quick to criticize those organizations when they do things wrong–which we should.
This conference in April, I think, will be the test of whether AJC is actually committed to open discourse on Israel within the Zionist community. I hope it keeps pleasantly surprising me.
