Getting the latest updates at the JPUpdates dinner
Esta Gordon (center) with MK Yoel Hasson and Ann Stamm
By Larry Gordon
Anti-Defamation League executive director emeritus Abe Foxman believes that Shabbos might be implicated by the press in some of the perceived bungling plaguing the first two weeks of the Trump presidency.
The role of Shabbos in the unsteady governing posture to date by the Trump machine has been mentioned in a Vanity Fair magazine article and in a panel discussion last week on CNN that included noted attorney and activist for Jewish causes Alan Dershowitz. The idea of the Shabbos impact on the Trump decision-making process was also featured on a recent Saturday Night Live comedy skit.
In a meeting with Mr. Foxman and Israeli Knesset member Yoel Hasson, arranged by political impresario Ezra Friedlander for the news outlet JP Updates, as part of the JPUpdates.com dinner and discussion series, we collected information and became privy to some of the establishment Jewish community thinking about the new Trump presidency from inside and outside Israel.
Foxman, now retired from the ADL, is the consummate representative of establishment American Jewish community thinking. By his own admission, now that he is no longer speaking for the ADL, he is able to say things that would have placed him in politically uncomfortable positions had he articulated them from his professional perspective.
Chief amongst those revelations is his statement that the much-talked-about two-state solution is an impossibility, considering circumstances at this time. In that vein, at the same time, Foxman believes that while the Trump people as well as the Israeli government are in favor of moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel-Aviv, it is not a high priority at present.
In fact, Mr. Foxman suggested something presented in this column a few weeks ago when we expounded upon the idea of functioning in Jerusalem as if the embassy was there by having the ambassador—expected to be David Friedman—both residing and working in Jerusalem. After all, Foxman said, there are 8–10 Arab countries with a new approach to working with Israel; why force them to backtrack or even withdraw because of an announcement that will do more damage and in reality will not significantly change anything?
In Israel, Mr. Hasson is a member of the Hatenuah faction of the Kadima Party led by Tzipi Livni and is now part of the opposition associated with the Zionist Union. Hasson is a former member of Likud’s liberal bloc that shifted out of the party when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon formed Kadima as a prelude to the Gush Katif withdrawal in 2005. He was in the U.S. last week for a series of meetings in New York and Washington as the Israeli government is still navigating its way and learning the nuances of the new leadership in DC. “Trump is not a Democrat and he is not a Republican,” Hasson told us; “he is just Trump.”
Although Barack Obama had himself surrounded with a number of Jewish advisers, aides, and assistants, when it comes to President Trump and the Jewish personalities around him, the analysis and critique becomes a completely different matter and an object of derision and even disdain.
And the focus is no more intense than on Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. This is, of course, the president’s Jewish son-in-law and his daughter who converted to Judaism in an Orthodox halachic conversion prior to marrying Mr. Kushner. The Trump inner staff and his most intimate advisers are Jews like Mr. Kushner, Steven Cohn, Boris Epshteyn, and his Israel advisers and attorneys, Jason Greenblatt and the ambassador-designate to Israel, David Friedman.
No one, however, has been more scrutinized than Kushner and his wife, the president’s daughter, who have been praised as well as excoriated in the press because of their subscribing to an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle and Mr. Kushner’s absence from important decision-making meetings that occur after sundown on Friday.
For his part, Mr. Foxman says he is worried about the phenomenon. He is uncomfortable with the inordinate amount of attention being paid to Kushner’s religious commitments and observance, and the media scrutiny and focus on Jews and Shabbos observance.
Foxman sees this matter as an opportunity for constant critics of Jews, also known sometimes as anti-Semites, to blame Jews for the rocky start in the governing style and policies being put forth by the new Trump administration. Abe Foxman, until his retirement last year, spent decades at the ADL identifying people and entities that either discriminated against Jews and other minorities with imbalance and behavior that deviated from convention.
The puzzling thing about the conversation was that one gets the sense that at this stage Foxman should be defending Kushner, speaking up in defense of his commitment to Shabbos observance instead of cowering
and contorting his thinking into worrying how anti-Semites and other critics of everything Jewish are reacting.
I asked Mr. Foxman why he wasn’t concerned that the thorough failure of the Obama administration on so many levels was not something that African-American leaders were concerned would reflect poorly on blacks in the U.S. And I asked him why Hillary Clinton’s poor performance as secretary of state, the careless fashion in which she handled top-secret information, and her failed campaign for president is not something that makes women around the nation uncomfortable.
According to Foxman, it seems that this matter of blame being distributed amongst all Jews when it’s something that should be taken in stride—like the president’s son-in-law leaving early on Friday for Shabbos—is an idea that should really be refuted.
Actually, I see the publicity that Shabbos is receiving—whether on CNN or SNL—as a positive thing that is also possible to be seen in a good light. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of American Jews do not observe Shabbos, but having it referred to on a nationally televised late-night comedy show or even the focus of a news panel on CNN eases Shabbos back into the psyche of millions of Jews who may have written off the veracity of Shabbos a very long time ago.
If this is what it takes for Shabbos to make a comeback after all these years, then so be it. The fact is that kiruv work and outreach organizations can only do so much. It’s great to be able to reach thousands of Jews who have drifted from observance, to host weekends that feature Torah study and greater Shabbos observance, or even mass challah-baking events that bring disenfranchised people a little closer.
Here, however, we are seeing before our eyes the biblical Bilaam-like attempt to ridicule and criticize and even damage the Jewish image. While that is the clear and obvious intent, the opportunity exists here to use the newfound publicity that Shabbos is receiving for good things that will make people other than our critics start to think a bit differently about Jared, Ivanka, and perhaps even Shabbos.
Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.