Open Letter to Abe Foxman

Once again, Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends – despite our self-identification as “anti-Israel” – failed to make the Anti-Defamation League’s “Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in the U.S.” list. So we sat down and penned the following letter to the ADL’s National Director Abe Foxman in hopes of correcting this egregious omission.

Abe Foxman,National Director
Anti-Defamation League
605 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10158

Dear Mr. Foxman,

As the founder of Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends, I would like to share with you the concern our group feels when we read the ADL’s 2013 “Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in the U.S.” JWPF has identified as “anti-Israel” ever since Rabbi Rob Dobrusin of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, labeled us as such in his op-ed letter to a local newspaper in 2007. Prior to that we identified only as “pro-Palestinian”. That was before we understood, as the Rabbi does, the zero-sum game at work, i.e. either Palestine lives or “Israel” does; there’s no sharing this trophy called Palestine.

Due to our small size, we’re not disappointed that we haven’t made the Top Ten list, but what rankles is that nine of the “top ten” groups you’ve listed are NOT anti-Israel. Only Neturei Karta rabbis, who pray for the peaceful dismantlement of the Jewish state, can be thus identified.

In fact four of the listed groups are Jewish-led (as you point out) and are PRO-Israel. They are

Act Now to Stop War and End Racism
CODEPINK: Women for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

None of the above groups identify as “anti-Israel” and all call for a “two-state solution”, which is about as Zionist a “solution” as one can imagine: Jews go HERE, non-Jews go THERE. Bingo! you have a Jewish state. To call these four groups “anti-Israel” can only mean someone at the ADL isn’t paying attention, and it’s your job – with our help – to set the record straight.

Additionally, one of these Top-Tenners – Friends of Sabeel-North America – regularly invite Zionist Jews to be keynote speakers at their gatherings. If that isn’t the fox guarding the hen house then we don’t know what is.

Back to describing our group a little for your consideration, seeing as how the 2014 “Top Ten” list has yet to be published and perhaps opening a slight chance for JWPF to be recognized: We have held peaceful vigils in front of a Zionist synagogue (is there any other kind?) for over eleven years. The local newspaper covered our group with a front-page story about a year and a half ago, including our picture above the fold:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~hersko/Photos/JWPF%20Anti-Israel.jpg

You can read the story at the URL provided below if you need more verification of our bona fides. Or you can contact me at the email address supplied below. Please, Mr. Foxman, set the record straight and give our group the recognition it deserves.

Yours truly,
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
Ann Arbor, Michigan
hersko@umich.edu

http://www.annarbor.com/news/beth-israel-congregants-reflect-on-10-years-of-protests-outside-synagogue-we-certainly-didnt-ask-for/

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January 3: Six vigilers
January 10: three vigilers
Henry Herskovitz
Jewish Witnesses for Peace and Friends
Gas chambers? Tell us the truth!