Finding our way on ‘J Street’

Finding our way on ‘J Street’

Most of Meretz USA’s active leadership attended J Street’s inaugural annual conference, Sunday evening through Tuesday. This links to the historical view that our executive director Ron Skonik took on the eve of this event.

Attending with us were an announced total of 1500 registrants. Most sessions were mobbed; twice I could hardly find a piece of wall to lean on, let alone a seat or (in one case) even floor space to sit on.

J Street has been whacked from right, left and center, yet has tried to conduct itself in a polite and even welcoming manner. Most sessions that I saw were informative and uplifting. A few others seemed more about showing how far it has gone in a mere 18 months of existence, but it deserves to crow about itself.

As our former executive director and now Meretz USA board member, Charney V. Bromberg indicated to me, “The peace movement has now found its center of gravity.” Describing itself as the “political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement” (I take “political” to mean that it strives for influence in Washington), J Street welcomed the participation of Meretz USA and at least 19 other peace-oriented Zionist or dovish organizations in the US and Israel as “partners” — as written on the conference badges that participants from those groups wore on their necks to facilitate access.

It has grown from a founding staff of four, a year and a half ago, to 30 today. Its initial two legally distinct entities, J Street and J Street PAC, have multiplied to five: there is the J Street Education Fund and an on-campus university student group called J Street U; the latter existed for several years as the Union of Progressive Zionists, which Meretz USA helped found and took the lead in fostering with staff time; and there is the brand new merger or alliance with Brit Tzedek V’Shalom as J Street’s “grassroots” or field arm (with a possible new name still to be determined).

J Street’s positions are nuanced and often misunderstood, if not deliberately distorted. Hence, today J Street U has felt it necessary to deny the claim that J Street U has dropped the “pro-Israel” part of its central slogan and organizing principle as “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”

By | 2009-10-28T19:12:00-04:00 October 28th, 2009|Blog|2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. Anonymous October 29, 2009 at 7:55 pm - Reply

    Correction: J Street U is a project of the J Street Education Fund (JSEF), which is a 501 c 3 non-profit. Most likely, the grassroots arm that used to be Brit Tzedek will be tied to JSEF and not a new legal entity.
    Stuart

  2. Anonymous November 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm - Reply

    Supported by Soros dollars and no longer “pro-Israel” (just pro-peace) and run by armchair quarterbacks who will say “whoops! we made an honest mistake” when the armed to the teeth Palestinian state led by a Hamas govt. tears up any peace accord and starts raining bombs on the entire Israel. Exactly as was predicted to happen in Gush Katif. “IN sanity” is defined as doing the same thing unsuccessfully 100 times and being surprised when it doesn’t work the 101st time. Unfortunately, my house will be in jeopardy not yours in Arlington. Obviously you do not care about the Jew’s attachment and right to Israel otherwise you’d be here.

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