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Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations

And on the website, the organization started a petition drive with this message:

DEAR MALCOLM,

Thank you for finally making it clear that the Conference of Presidents is not representative of the voice of the Jewish community.

We recognize the need for an open and honest conversation on Israel in the United States. We appreciate you being honest. Now we’ll work on the openness.

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As a result of its sour grapes approach to its denial of admission, J Street’s close friends in the Reform branch of Judaism who are members of the Conference of Presidents have joined in the pity party.

On Thursday, May 1, the Reform movement posted on its website a statement that echoed J Street’s claim that because J Street wasn’t admitted to the Conference of  Presidents it must mean there is something wrong, something undemocratic about the constitution of the Conference.

The Reform movement declared that either the Conference had to be entirely overhauled or that the denomination as a whole would withdraw.

“As of yesterday, it is clear that the Conference of Presidents, as currently constituted and governed, no longer serves its vital purpose of providing a collective voice for the entire American Jewish pro-Israel community,” Union of Reform Judaism President Rick Jacobs (who previously served on J Street’s rabbinic cabinet) said in the statement:

Yesterday’s vote by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to reject J Street’s application for membership made clear what many have long known, but not said publicly: That the Conference of Presidents is captive of a large number of small organizations that do not represent the diversity of views in our community. As many of us argued before and at the meeting, yesterday’s debate was actually a referendum not on J Street but on the Conference of Presidents itself. As of yesterday, it is clear that the Conference of Presidents, as currently constituted and governed, no longer serves its vital purpose of providing a collective voice for the entire American Jewish pro-Israel community.

In the days ahead, Reform Movement leaders will be consulting with our partners within the Conference of Presidents to decide what our next steps will be. We may choose to advocate for a significant overhaul of the Conference of Presidents’ processes. We may choose to simply leave the Conference of Presidents. But this much is certain: We will no longer acquiesce to simply maintaining the facade that the Conference of Presidents represents or reflects the views of all of American Jewry.

We want to be clear: The Conference of Presidents followed its own procedures meticulously. It is, in fact, those procedures that all but dictated the result.

So now, for a people about which perhaps the iconic statement is that for every two Jews there must be three shuls, it appears J Street may have succeeded in unraveling the delicate tapestry of a united American Jewry.

 

 

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Lori Lowenthal Marcus is a contributor to the JewishPress.com. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools. You can reach her by email: [email protected]