L ast Motzaei Shabbos I flew to Palo Alto (after consulting my rabbinic advisors) for a panel “discussion” called Zionism 3.0 that included the head of the Reform movement in America Rick Jacobs and an “Orthodox” rabbi who raises large sums in the Bay Area for his Jerusalem institute. On issues of religious pluralism in Israel I could not detect a sliver of daylight between the two. Channel 2’s Yonit Levy moderated the event which was held at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center.
When I was originally invited to the panel during Chol Hamoed I was told that the topic would be the Kosel controversies. But that was subsequently expanded to a general critique of chareidi political power called “Elected by the Majority Controlled by the Minority.” Eventually the topic was further expanded to threats to American democracy from Donald Trump and a Stanford professor of political science was included in the discussion.
Jeffrey Goldberg the editor of the Atlantic who as he himself mentioned was often described as President Obama’s court Jew gave the keynote address — an extended critique of the damage wrought to America’s democratic culture by President Trump. What exactly Trump had to do with Zionism except as a foil for a bit of sniping at Prime Minister Netanyahu was not clear but the audience loved it.
I mentioned to Goldberg afterwards that it was too bad he had not found time in his articulate survey of American democracy’s deficits to mention that 20 percent of US college students according to a recent academic study believe physical force is legitimate to shut down speakers who say “offensive and hurtful things” and 50 percent believe that it is legitimate to make it impossible for them to speak.
