By Joanna Kadish, other
Contrary to the basic Seattle rule, “If it’s going to snow, don’t go,” more than 140 people from across Seattle arrived at Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation on Mercer Island on the evening of Jan. 29 to hear Matthew Levitt, a former FBI analyst who participated in the post—Sept. 11 investigation of Flight 175, the second plane to strike the World Trade Center. He described the web of terrorist organizations that threaten both the United States and Israel.
Levitt, now a terrorism studies fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, was speaking on behalf of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). But his audience was drawn from many other organizations, including the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), both of which receive annual allocations from the Jewish Federation Community Campaign, Hadassah and the Jewish Federation. Politically and organizationally, the leaders of these groups have found that they share the same values related to the current situation or matsav in Israel. Their work together has brought a wealth of speakers to the greater Seattle area.
“This talk was great,” observed Michael Weichbrodt, a stockbroker from Bellevue, who has been involved in both AIPAC and the Jewish Federation. “The sponsors should get a lot of credit for keeping the community up to date.” Another participant, Rob Schoenfeld, who serves on the Jewish Federation board, commented, “It’s hard to keep up with, let alone get, good insider information. I’m glad that the federation is helping keep us up to date.”
Starting shortly after the matsav, the groups have hosted speakers ranging from Israeli Consul General Yossi Amrani, who has done two community-wide presentations, to Professor Gerald Steinberg of Bar Ilan University, who addressed the military situation following Sept. 11, to Professor Revuen Firestone, a rabbi noted for his knowledge of Islam, who spoke at Temple B’nai Torah.
“How many Jews would go to a mosque to listen to a speaker on modern Islam?” asked Rick Harkavy, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s office in Seattle. Depending on the venue, the topic and the weather, attendance has varied from 100 or so when the project started to over 450 people at some programs.
The origins of the group date back to November 2000, when the professional leaders of the five Jewish organizations met to discuss the rising violence following Yasser Arafat’s rejection of former Israeli Prime Minister Barak’s offers at the Camp David summit. Chuck Broches, assistant executive vice president at the federation, recalls, “We quickly discovered that we were all saying pretty much the same thing,” and he continues, “our community needs to hear all of the facts and no one organization can do the job alone.” Equally important, Broches explained, “was that we were all hearing from the grassroots members of our community about the need to do something to respond to inaccuracies in the press about Israel.”
At the time, European condemnation of Israel was widespread, accompanied by a groundswell in the U.S. media that labeled Israel as the aggressor, with American insistence on continuing the hallowed “peace process” and pushing Israel to make major concessions, meanwhile downplaying the killings. Brian Goldberg, executive director of the Seattle office of the Anti-Defamation League, marvels at how swiftly many left- and right-wing writers took up an anti-Israel position, viewing the Palestinians as “underdogs” in a fight for national freedom, a romantic notion that belies history. It seemed that everyone was questioning the Jewish state, not just the Israelis. “A lot of these radical groups still don’t realize that there’s no difference between Al Qaeda members or Hamas,” he said. “They call suicide bombers who kill Israelis “˜militants’ or “˜fighters.’”
On a related local front, a group of volunteers led by Sharon Finegold, Amos Leviant and Rob Dolin started a media response group, which monitors the Seattle press for biased reports. Many of the volunteers from the media response group attend the consortium programs to further their own education and share new insights with the press and their peers.
“Sometimes people want agencies to stand out on their own,” said Harkavy. “Organizations can be territorial, a lot of people don’t see the difference between the ADL and the federation or the AJC and AIPAC, so in many communities there is a lot of tension between organizations.” Recognizing that each organization has its own mission and approach to problem solving, the group collectively brings to Seattle a wide array of speakers on topics relevant to the Middle East and American foreign policy.
“Sometimes, there are turf issues, but we come together around support for Israel,” reported Jill Cohen, director of the local Hadassah chapter. Cohen speaks with some insight because over a decade ago she wrote her master’s thesis on turf wars in the Jewish community.
Cohen’s insight into why her colleagues in the greater Seattle area joined together is that beyond a shared “urgency” all five members of this loosely knit coalition are locally based and share some of the same volunteer leaders. Most important, she argued, was “the realization that there are some things we should do together.”
Cohen and Hadassah continue the consortium’s efforts on Feb. 11, when Amy Goldstein, Hadassah’s national director of Israel, Zionist and International Affairs, will speak at Congregation Beth Shalom at 7:30. Goldstein will speak on the topic: “Who Is the Enemy?” On April 29, Stuart Schoffman, a contributing editor from The Jerusalem Report will speak at Town Hall at the Jewish Federation’s campaign’s closing program.