Who Speaks for the Jews?

Now those simple arrangements have frayed, boundaries have become blurred, and unified interests have given way to competing objectives, with self-appointed community spokesmen working at cross purposes. That chaos has been exacerbated by social media. Adversaries outside the community have recognized the discord and seek to exploit it.

A panel of four experts offer their assessments of the environment and their recommendations for fixing the problems

David G. Greenfield

is the CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. He served on the New York City Council from 2010 to 2017, and is the founding director and counsel of Teach NYS, a nonprofit advocating for private schools in New York state.

Rabbi Moshe Aron Hoffman

is a spokesman for Mosdos Satmar, under the leadership of Rebbe Aharon Teitelbaum, and is a veteran liaison to the Hungarian government.

Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender

is the founder and president of Achiezer, a nonprofit organization started in 2008 that provides both community-wide and individualized services ranging from medical, financial, and emotional support to disaster relief.

Rabbi Yitz Frank

is the executive director of Agudath Israel of Ohio. He lives in the Cleveland area and serves on numerous community and institutional boards.

It was an all-time low.

Last month, a hachnassas sefer Torah ceremony — the most beautiful of events — turned ugly. A veteran askan, the usual liaison, turned to the police for help, as he so often had, asking them to close off a few roads for the procession. But the police, still unsure about COVID protocols, refused and made a counter-offer for a smaller ceremony.

The askan explained some of the sensitivities involved and asked them to reconsider. After all, they knew him. He’d come around to their holiday parties over the years and brought them large trays of latkes. He’d arranged communal sreifas chometz, and, after a horrible anti-Semitic attack in a neighboring community, he’d accompanied the police chief to a meeting with rabbanim.