Jewish liberals slam de Blasio over AIPAC address - Jewish World Israel News | Haaretz

Jewish liberals slam de Blasio over AIPAC address - Jewish World Israel News | Haaretz

Jewish liberals slam de Blasio over AIPAC address

'your
job is not to do AIPAC’s bidding when they call you to do so,' angered Jews
write NYC mayor.

By JTA | Jan.
30, 2014 | 4:42 AM

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/1.571360

New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, is
taking some flak over his recent speech to the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee in which he promised “that City Hall
will always be open to AIPAC, that when you need me to stand by you in
Washington or anywhere, I will answer the call, and I’ll answer it happily,
’cause that’s my job.”



The lefty mayor’s pledge to be a loyal ally to
the pro-Israel lobbying group irked some prominent lefty Jews. In an open
letter sent to de Blasio today, 58 Jewish liberals told the mayor that “your
job is not to do AIPAC’s bidding when they call you to do so.”



“AIPAC speaks for Israel’s hard-line
government and its right-wing supporters, and for them alone; it does not speak
for us,” they concluded. (The letter’s full text is pasted below.)



The letter’s signatories include a mix of
rabbis, philanthropists, activists and cultural figures.



The list — while solidly left-leaning — has a
bit of political diversity, with liberal Zionist journalist Peter Beinart
signed on alongside Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of the far-left
Jewish Voice for Peace. There are some significant Jewish communal figures,
including Karen Adler, the president of the Jewish Communal Fund, Rabbis
Rolando Matalon and Felicia Sol of prominent Upper West Side shul B’nai
Jeshurun, and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum of the city’s leading gay and lesbian
synagogue. There are also a few semi-bold-face names, such as famed feminist
Gloria Steinem, “Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler, and novelists Anne
Roiphe and Erica Jong.



The letter’s signatories are not the only ones
criticizing the de Blasio’s AIPAC appearance. The absence of the engagement
from de Blasio’s publicized schedule and the ban on press at the event has
drawn criticism for being inconsistent with the principle of open governance.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former president of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote
in Haaretz that de Blasio and AIPAC had, with their secrecy, “managed to take a
routine political event intended to promote support for Israel and turn it into
a mini-crisis and a major embarrassment for all concerned.”



Here is the text of the letter:



January 29, 2014



An Open Letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio:



We are Jewish residents of New York who read,
in the leaked transcript of your private speech to a meeting of AIPAC leaders,
the following:



“City Hall will always be open to AIPAC. When
you need me to stand by you in Washington or anywhere, I will answer the call
and I’ll answer it happily ’cause that’s my job.”



We understand that the job of mayor of New
York is a complex one that often calls for your participation on the
international stage, and we would not presume to define your job for you. But
we do know that the needs and concerns of many of your constituents–U.S. Jews
like us among them–are not aligned with those of AIPAC, and that no, your job
is not to do AIPAC’s bidding when they call you to do so. AIPAC speaks for
Israel’s hard-line government and its right-wing supporters, and for them
alone; it does not speak for us.



Sincerely yours,



Ruth J. Abram

Karen R. Adler

Arlene Alda

Anita Altman

Esther Ann-Asch

Emanuel Ax

Peter Beinart

Andrew Berger

Loren Bevans

Martin I. Bresler

Kenneth David Burrows

Howard Clyman

Rabbi Rachel Cowan

Barbara Deinhardt

Barbara Dobkin

Eugene Eisner

Laurel W. Eisner

Daniel Engelstein

Eve Ensler

Danny Goldberg

Sally Gottesman

Linda Gottlieb

Laurence Greenwald

Jane Hirschmann

Erica Jong

Peter A. Joseph

Alice Kessler-Harris

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum

Gil Kulick

Martha Weinman Lear

Bobbie Leigh

Jonathan Leigh

Alan H. Levine

Rabbi Ellen Lippmann

Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon

Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark

Donna Nevel

Kathleen Peratis

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

Bertrand B. Pogrebin

Michael Ratner

Anne Roiphe

Betty Rollin

Al Ruben

Marlene Sanders

James Schamus

Dan Silverman

Beverly Solochek

Carla Singer

Rabbi Felicia Sol

Alisa Solomon

Gloria Steinem

Herbert Teitelbaum

Rebecca Vilkomerson

Rabbi Burton Visotzky

Peter Weiss

Jack Willis

Eugenia Zukerman

COMMENT:

I invite the world community of
nations to read very minutely the above written by the cross section of JEWS.
In addition there is no need to believe that people of different religion has
projected the matter to motivate world community of Nations against The uncouth
members of AIPAC and the right wingers as a whole now.

This AIPAC and its members have in
fact become a national liability and a heavy burden to the US finance and
economy. Not only that it has also become the bone of contention in national
Politics by obstructing all matters of national progress and development. does
it stop here with such activities? No it does not.  

 

Because these political members of a
known national political party even conspired to kill 47% American middle class
and poor terming them as liabilities with the last Presidential candidate
during the election.

Thanks to the Almighty for getting
conspirators caught red handed . And the Elected President with the blessing of
GOD and the American Public saved the situation and no harm could be done to
the American  Middle class and poor.

The American Public is now
apprehensive of mass killing during the coming election if this Mayor works as
he stated for the AIPAC which has a group of MOSSAD under cover  stationed in USA for destabilizing the
peaceful political situation in US.

Analysts opines that further
elucidation is not necessary to   readers
and the members of the American Public to highlight their demand to kick out
this uncouth AIPAC from the country  in
self defense and national security.