Tweet

Share
 

If you tell the rabbis, they will spread the word.

That was the thinking behind two intimate White House meetings with a carefully selected slate of 15 rabbis from across the country representing the Orthodox, Reform and Conservative streams.

Jack Moline, a Conservative rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Va., initiated the meetings after a talk he had with his friend Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, about the Obama administration’s perceived lack of friendliness toward Israel.

The meetings — the first held in April; the second on May 13 — were part of a charm offensive after relations between the governments of President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit a low in early March. In addition, Obama held a closed-door meeting May 18 with 37 Jewish members of Congress.

Moline said the rabbis were selected because of the high profiles they have in their communities, and because they had concerns about how the Obama administration was conducting Middle East policy — but had not displayed outright hostility to the president.

“The rabbis who were in this group were chosen because they’re in touch with their different congregations in different parts of the country,” Moline said.

Not all the rabbis came away entirely mollified, but nonetheless they were impressed by the seriousness of the outreach.

Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of the Orthodox Boca Raton Synagogue in Florida said he left the meetings still wondering if the administration is on the right track, but “cautiously optimistic” because of the depth of commitment to Israel he heard.

“I left with a clear impression that these individuals have a real passion about Israel,” even if he did not agree with them on tactics, Goldberg said. Their interlocutors at the two meetings were high level: Dennis Ross, who runs Obama’s Iran policy; Dan Shapiro, the deputy national security adviser who supervises policy for Israel and its neighbors; Susan Sher, the chief White House liaison to the Jewish community; and Emanuel.

“Among the rabbis there was a diversity of those who support the administration policies and feel the message hasn’t trickled down, and those who have problems with some of the policies,” Goldberg said. “But the universal message was you need to show more love; this is not how you treat family.”

The rabbis, none of whom were from California, posed questions ranging from the substantive to repetitions of rumors about the president and how he was perceived to have treated Netanyahu poorly during a visit to Washington in March.

The White House staffers answered the questions politely and with equanimity, Moline said.

“There was a lot of highlighting of the actual activities and policies of the administration,” Moline said, and “some frustration” that what the Obama administration has done for Israel “has not been comprehensively and accurately reported. They emphasized that whatever the messaging has been over the past year and a half, the policies have been in place.”

The officials emphasized, for instance, the closeness of the defense relationship. On May 13, as the rabbis were meeting with the staffers, the Obama administration authorized $205 million on top of the annual $3 billion in defense assistance for Israel to complete its Iron Dome short-range missile defense system.

Goldberg indicated that the White House was putting too much weight on the message and not the substance of the policy.

“It’s easy to repeat the phrases ‘unbreakable bond’ and ‘shared values,’ ” he said. “We want to hear in no uncertain terms that Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear, that it’s great that the proximity talks” between Israel and the Palestinians “have started, but inevitably there will be an impasse, and when that happens, will they only apply pressure Israel, or have they learned something?”

The rabbis in attendance seemed receptive and took the message home.

“Our president is every bit as committed to Israel’s safety and security as any previous administration,” Rabbi Aaron Rubinger said in a May 8 Shabbat morning sermon at Congregation Ohev Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Orlando, Fla. “I do not believe the president is abandoning Israel or has any intention of abandoning Israel.”

Rubinger listed what he called “significant” administration talking points: The refusal to participate in the U.N.’s Durban Review Conference against racism last year because the president believed Israel would be unfairly criticized; the rejection of Richard Goldstone’s U.N. report on Israel’s actions during the war in Gaza; the refusal to participate in joint military exercises with Turkey when Ankara said it would withdraw if Israel were included; the ongoing cooperation on missile defense issues; and numerous recent visits to Washington by Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister.

Rubinger said he believes these actions far outweigh the negativity surrounding the “flap” over construction in east Jerusalem.

Lyn Payne, associate editor of the Heritage Florida Jewish News, contributed to this report.

most popular rss feeds