Are you a Jewish student? Are you fed up with the state of American Zionism? Have $5? Good. Click here before April 30, pay the $5, then vote to change things. I can’t explain the process, the necessity, or the candidates better than J.J.Goldberg did in two articles in the Forward, so I won’t try. But on one foot, the voting is for the American delegation to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem this fall.
In my job, if the mayor of Columbus switches to a Jewish pediatrician, I hear about it, yet somehow, I only heard of these elections via friends’ Facebook feeds. This is a shame since, as Goldberg reports, there is a lot at stake here. The WZC meets every 4 years to oversee the World Zionist Organization, which chooses officers and sets budgets for organizations that spend mountains of money globally on Jewish education, aliyah, countering anti-Semitism, diaspora relations, and, crucially, overseeing settlement construction. The Congress is run like a parliament, with representation divvied out to countries based on their Jewish populations, and representation within those countries’ delegations apportioned according to what slates they vote for in this election. The American Jewish community has 145 of the Congress’ 500 seats, second only to Israel’s 190. What this means is that with government peace talks at a standstill, this election represents an unparalleled opportunity for the American Jewish community, especially young Jews, to make their voices heard and create meaningful change towards a two-state solution.
I voted two weeks ago and I’ll even tell you who I voted for: “Hatikvah,” the Progressive Zionist slate organized primarily by Partners for Progressive Israel, Ameinu, Habonim Dror, and Hashomer Hatzair.
“Wow. You may be the most religious person to vote for our slate,” said a friend of mine who works for Ameinu when I told her my choice. So why would a kosher-keeping, kipah-wearing, Shabbat-keeping Jew like myself vote for a bunch of (largely) secular leftists? It’s the settlements, stupid.
I was never a lock to vote Hatikvah. There were other slates I considered, and others whose platforms make me ill that anybody votes for them. The Orthodox “Religious Zionists: Vote Torah for the Soul of Israel” slate is strongly allied with Israel’s pro-settlement Habayit Hayehudi party. As a religious Jew, the name of this slate offends me: I do “vote Torah for the soul of Israel”, which is why I want the country to have one and why I would never vote for them. Similarly, all explicitly pro-settlement slates were out, including the ZOA’s “Defend Israel and Jewish Rights,” which pursued multiple rounds of failed attempts to have Hatikvah banned from the elections, which should be reason enough to vote Hatikvah.
There were two other slates I seriously considered before deciding on Hatikvah: “Israeli Spring” and “Mercaz USA.” Israeli Spring’s centrism appealed to me, and I admire Gil Troy, who is prominent on their slate. But their platform proved too vague and their omission of any references to settlements felt too intentional for my comfort. I am a committed centrist, but as I will explain, this is one thing the Jewish people can no longer afford to be complacent about. Mercaz USA, the slate of the Conservative Movement, sounded fairly reasonable, but they also had no mention of a policy towards settlements, plus I don’t like the idea of electing a single denomination as representative over all of American Jewry.
But I didn’t vote Hatikvah for negative reasons alone. They speak to many other issues near to my heart, like equality for all streams of Judaism and for all religions under the law. This essentially means they favor dismantling the Chief Rabbinate, a reform that is long overdue and one that I as a religious Jew wholeheartedly endorse. To give a few examples of many of how the Rabbinate regularly desecrates God’s Name in Israel, marriage and divorce in the Jewish State are run by the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate, making it impossible for non-Orthodox converts—and even some Orthodox ones—to wed other Jews and often to raise their children as full Jewish citizens in the Jewish state. Non-Orthodox rabbis currently have virtually no religious authority. Many Israeli Jews equate Judaism with the Chief Rabbinate and its draconian policies and are thus turned off from Judaism entirely. This has to change, and secular parties eliminating the power of the Rabbinate in the name of religious freedom will be a huge step in this direction. In the 21st century, coercive religion represents the last desperate grasp of a system that has lost its power to inspire or compete in the open marketplace of ideas. To answer my friend’s question from before, Hatikvah would actually make it easier for myself and other Jews to practice our religion while also not impinging the right of anyone else to practice theirs. You know, freedom of religion.
Income disparity in Israel is second only to the US. Hatikvah recognizes the seriousness of this situation and stands for a social safety net, education, and providing increased economic opportunities for all Israelis. Hatikvah also supports compassion for refugees, women’s rights, LGBTQ equality, and environmental sustainability, all of which I fully support.
True, many other slates espouse similar values to one extent or another, but Hatikvah stands alone in advocating a concrete policy towards stopping settlement construction and negotiating a workable two-state solution. The continued occupation is a stain on the soul of Israel as both a country and a people. Whatever security benefit it has is far outweighed by the constant human-rights abuses it engenders, not because Israelis or Jews are bad people, but because a humane occupation is an oxymoron that can only bring out the worst in both sides. It needs to end with a negotiated two-state solution, for Israel’s sake as much as for the Palestinians. Their comprehensive solution at worst can’t work any worse than the untenable status quo. Those on the right or the far-left fringe might not buy this, but the resulting stronger, better Israel will speak for itself—as J. J. Goldberg alludes, its time the intellectual inheritors of the leftist founders of the state once again took the reigns.
And about that leftism: Even if you think some of the organizations in the slate are too leftist for you, realistically, their influence in the larger Congress will, at best, move American Zionism from the right-wing ledge it’s currently teetering over back towards a more stable center.
I want a world where the phrase “Progressive Zionist” is no longer met with a sneer, where Zionist organizations are actively involved in creating both a more just Israel for all her citizens and a more extant Palestine. Where Zionist organizations respond to Israel’s biggest challenges with ideas instead of witch-hunts, where young Jews see Zionism as the answer instead of the problem, with the added benefit of exposing flagrant anti-Israelism—the idea that, uniquely among nations, the Jewish State can improve only by ceasing to exist—for the hateful rhetoric it is. This vision is was what Zionism was originally intended as and what we can help it to become again, if only we click here, vote, and have hope.
Derek M. Kwait graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and is editor in chief of New Voices.
