By Manny Frishberg, JTNews Correspondent
When Washington State’s Democratic Party scheduled its county conventions for April 19, no one stopped to consult the Hebrew calendar. If they had, someone likely would have noticed that the day they had chosen is erev Pesach — the day of the first night of Passover. And, until just recently, no one in the Jewish community stopped to consult the Democrats’ calendar to discover the scheduling conflict, according to Rob Jacobs of the StandWithUs Israel advocacy organization. This has presented a problem for Jewish Democratic activists.
Washington is not the only state that has run into the same scheduling problem. According to a report from the JTA news service, Nevada just completed its first January caucus ever, and made the mistake of scheduling the meetings at the same time as Shabbat services, effectively disenfranchising many of the state’s Jews. While the state political parties went out of their way to schedule caucuses at several Las Vegas casinos to allow for the participation of restaurant and hotel workers there, they have so far been less accommodating to the observant Jews of that state.
Here in Washington, Hilary Bernstein, interim director of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said she sent a letter to the Democratic Party requesting a date change.
“Since absentee balloting is not an option, we said having the convention on April 19 would have the effect of forcing many Jewish Americans to choose between their political and religious observance,” Bernstein said.
Separately, Jacobs said he learned about the problem around the second week of January, although he acknowledges the information on the scheduling had been available for some time.
“People started realizing what date the county conventions were on and how it affected preparations for Pesach seders,” he said. “A number of the activists got in touch with the Democratic leadership and were told it was basically too late to change the date.”
Jacobs said the problem of the date was accentuated by the starting times originally announced for the conventions, which were slated to begin in the early afternoon. Based on past years, when the conventions have run between four and six hours, it was apparent they could go on until sunset, when the seders were to begin.
“Apparently, internally, the party decided that some of them were going to start at nine o’clock in the morning,” Jacobs said, although the time change was not immediately publicized.
Several of the activists set up a Web site to rally support for changing the date. Jacobs said that in just two days, they had collected about 800 signatures for a letter asking state party leader Dwight Pelz to do something about it — a response far greater than the activists could have imagined.
“The idea,” said Jacobs, “was to explain to the Democratic Party leadership that it’s the equivalent of trying to tell the Christian community that we’re going to have a five- or six-hour convention that’s going to determine the platform and the leadership in the counties, but we’re going to put it on December 24, and we’ll be done well in time so it doesn’t interfere with your Christmas Eve.
“We know it would never fly if they tried to do something like that. They would never even think to do something like that. So, why, once we explained it to them, was it so difficult to get movement on that, when Passover is probably the most celebrated holiday in the Jewish community?”
Although they initially resisted making the change so late in their planning process, the state party machinery was open to making adjustments to be sure that the voices of Jewish delegates are heard in the end.
Party representatives did not respond to messages from JTNews asking for comment, but a statement was released on Jan. 18 by Pelz addressing the issue.
“On behalf of the Washington State Democratic Party I would like to apologize for the distress we have created within the Jewish community regarding the scheduling of our County Conventions,” he wrote. “Four days ago, on Monday January 14, I was informed by a member of the Jewish Caucus of the Washington State Democratic Party of a conflict between our scheduled County Convention date, and the Passover Holiday, which begins that evening at sundown. While our County Convention begins at 9 a.m. and is slated to conclude in the early afternoon, I have learned that it conflicts with the needs of Jewish families to prepare for the Passover Seder, and to travel to meet friends and families.
“As Chair of the Washington State Democratic Party I have asked the county Democratic parties to either move their convention to an earlier date, or to commit to concluding business by 1 p.m. that day. At this point I understand that King and Snohomish will move their convention date; and that Pierce and Thurston are reviewing the decision.”
According to Pelz’s statement, the April 19 date had been adopted on March 13, 2007 and was made public at that time.
“That record has been reviewed by hundreds of members of our Party, and by the [Democratic National Committee], which must approve the calendar of our Delegate Selection Plan,” he added. “It is unfortunate that the conflict was not identified until we were three months away from our County Conventions.”
Jacobs said the date change is of particular importance because many platform and policy decisions are debated at the county-level meetings.
“You’re talking about the county conventions where so many of the anti-Israel planks have popped up on a regular basis,” he said. “If you — unintentionally — create a situation where many of the Jewish participants don’t attend, it’s much more likely that some of these resolutions would be raised without significant opposition.”
Linda Clifton, a Democratic Party activist and current board president of the ADL, said she had been working on this issue for more than four years.
“This has been an effort that’s been going on since the party shifted its precinct caucuses from Tuesday night to Saturday morning,” she said. “So this time, when the convention was scheduled for the day that Passover begins that evening, I think it just really struck a nerve.”
Clifton said she worked on the convention issue as a Democrat and not as a representative of the ADL, but supported her organization’s position.
“The issue really is access for minority groups to party decision-making. Are we going to be allowed to be at the table when the discussions happen and when the votes are taken?” she said. “It applies to us, it applies to the Seventh Day Adventists, it applies to all of the community, not just the Jewish community.”