JEWISH SOLIDARITY, RECONSIDERED

As 10,000 or more gathered for an Israel-solidarity rally in midtown Manhattan, some speakers voiced joy and surprise as they scanned the unexpectedly massive crowd in front of them.

Surprised? The Jan. 11 event was held on a Sunday, when most Jews are off work and not observing Shabbat. During the past few years, at least three pro-Israel rallies were held in Manhattan on Mondays. Many Jews work on Mondays, and usually their jobs are located beyond a reasonable walking distance from these demonstrations.

With the Israeli invasion of Gaza at its peak, I spotted a newspaper letter in which the writer complained that American Jews should have conducted protests on the first day that a rocket launched from Gaza struck Sderot. A more recent letter in The Los Angeles Jewish Journal urged the Jewish community to become more active in Jewish causes.

I would argue that Israel is winning the public-relations war in the United States and elsewhere in the West. In sports terms, Israel prevailed in the image tussle on points - far short of a knockout punch. My impression has been that most Americans are scared and confused whenever war breaks out in the Middle East. Given recent history, they have little empathy left for the Arabs, though they have a measure of understanding for Israel.

Yet the abrupt bombardment of Gaza on Dec. 27 struck the world’s psyche like a sledgehammer. This perception could have been averted had the Jewish community prepared America for Israel’s actions. A much stronger drive to present Israel’s grievances in the past decade might have cushioned the public response. Maybe a more forceful initiative would have helped prod a political resolution, precluding a military confrontation.

During the past decade, Israelis and their supporters have contended with a range of ordeals while neglecting to sufficiently expose Arab crimes to their international neighbors. Israel offered the Arabs an independent state, and the Arab response was a war which ended in the deaths of 1,100 Israelis and 3,000 Arabs. Israel fully withdrew from Gaza, and extremists there responded by firing rockets into Sderot and other southern Israeli towns.

A mad tyrant, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, threatens to nuke Israel and supplies weapons to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. An Israeli soldier who was kidnapped in June 2006 remains in captivity, most likely in Gaza. Even now, a terror spree threatens Jews in Islamic countries, and jeopardizes Jews in Europe and to a lesser extent in South America.

Some of these events, taken together, affords a convincing rationale for the invasion of Gaza even if it meant the deaths of innocent Arabs caught in the crossfire. The Israeli government made certain to brief the news media on much of this backstory, which helped shape public opinion.

America’s Jewish community made a limited effort to lay the groundwork to educate its neighbors. As the results bear out, those initiatives were not good enough. Advocates needed to conduct a sustained, forceful and methodical drive to ensure that these issues were heavily promoted in the public arena.

We cannot go back in time, but the Jewish community can reassess how to confront comparable concerns in the future. First step is to identify legitimate concerns which are not subject to debate. The Jewish community may never reach common ground on settlements, but we should be capable of coalescing around the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the end of rocket attacks and portraying Ahmadinejad as the Darth Vader of the Middle East.

“Doing nothing is not an option,” and “failure is not an option,” to respectively quote President Obama at his first press conference and Ed Harris in Apollo 13. The Jewish community must devise a strategy to tackle issues affecting Israel and the Jewish community elsewhere, including America.

Any strategy must engage the grassroots as well as Jewish leaders and furnish a means of attracting Jews who feel disconnected from the Jewish community. Tactics can incorporate rallies, petition drives, support from political figures, news conferences by Jewish leaders, newspaper advertisements and exposure of inappropriate behavior of advocates for the Arabs.

Such a campaign should be engineered for maximum effect. The use of demonstrations was mismanaged in recent years, especially those in Manhattan. Any gathering in midtown Manhattan can be a magnet for world attention because of its center-of-the-universe status. New York City is accessible via cheap transportation not only from its suburbs but as far as Philadelphia, the Hamptons and New Haven. From Philadelphia, I frequently take advantage of this transportation network.

It makes sense to hold a Manhattan rally on a Sunday at 1 or 2 p.m. for the convenience of those who work outside midtown on weekdays and/or observe Shabbat on Saturdays, and even those who live 100 miles from NYC.

Prior to the most recent war, the midtown rallies were held on Mondays at noon. They reportedly drew a respectable turnout, partly because students from Jewish day schools were bused to the site. Turnout could have been far more abundant if they were held on a Sunday, the later the better.

On Jan. 11, a Sunday, four pro-Israel rallies were held in the New York region - in midtown, Long Island, New Jersey and the northern suburbs, each drawing a healthy turnout. They were covered by daily newspapers in the area, including suburban papers. Rabbi Avi Weiss, spiritual leader of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, led fellow Riverdalians to the Manhattan rally, according to The Riverdale Press.

The only glitch for the Manhattan event was the start time, 11 a.m. I skipped it because of other business, but the 11 a.m. start was too early for me and possibly for many others who might have been willing to attend.

A Philadelphia demonstration was held at lunchtime downtown on a weekday, but another protest was staged on the following Saturday night, Jan. 10, at a suburban synagogue. The center city event happened to work for me since it was held across the street from my office. Florida Jews staged a series of rallies nights and weekends, even after the fighting ended, and many were reported in their local newspapers.

Holding rallies is not the sole instrument, but an organized campaign is key to telling Israel’s side. Such a drive makes people aware of Israel’s challenges and provides public officials with ammunition when they speak in solidarity with Israel. As a bonus, the entire Jewish community has the opportunity to help their fellow Jews elsewhere
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