A group called “Come Together Against Hate” has formed, apparently, for the sole purpose of preventing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from appearing at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) convention which begins March 20 in Washington, DC.
In a press release issued this week, the group stated: “At the conference, we will be distributing thousands of stickers and flyers to encourage as many people as possible to follow our lead. Thousands of attendees will be peacefully and respectfully protesting Mr. Trump’s speech at the conference. Many will be standing up before he speaks and silently leaving the room. Others will be absenting themselves from his introduction as well. All will be joining together outside of the hall to share in learning about Derech Eretz (Common Decency). We believe Torah is our moral guide. There is no greater or more profound way to stand up to bigotry than to teach lessons of love, respect, and dignity. Our goal is not to disrupt the proceedings or to offend any of our fellow conference attendees. Our hope is to shine a moral light on the darkness that has enveloped Mr. Trump’s campaign.”
AIPAC did not offer a response to the negative responses from the liberal left to the very idea of hosting the leading Republican candidate for president. Nor has any rightwing Jewish group lend its support to AIPAC so far, for essentially doing its job as a pro-Israel lobby. This has kept the debate so far in the Jewish left, which appears to be advocating a Zionist boycott against a man who has a fifty-fifty chance to be the next leader of the free world.
Reform Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, the former president of his movement, made it clear that he wants to see a broad Jewish rejection of Trump, never mind the obvious cost. In an op-ed in Ha’aretz Wednesday, Yoffie wrote: “Might protests at AIPAC hurt Israel’s cause? They might. Will an ongoing, organized Jewish effort to battle Trump’s bigotry adversely impact Jewish security and well-being in America? If Trump is elected President, it could. But no matter. American Jews are seeing things that they never expected to see in their country, and they are dismayed and frightened.”
Yoffie blames Trump for the racist and anti-Semitic winds that are obviously blowing from his hordes of followers, declaring “we don’t care a bit that Trump has many Jewish friends and a daughter who has converted to Judaism. … Trump has called forth an endless stream of vicious anti-Jewish attacks from right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis who have rushed to defend him from his critics.”
Identifying himself as a “Zionist dove,” Yoffie argues that Trump “seems to know hardly anything at all about Israel, the challenges she faces, and how the Middle East actually works.” He concludes with a prediction that “Jews will be hoping and praying, for the sake of everything that we hold dear, that anyone other than Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.”
Other leftwing Jewish groups have used the Trump appearance for an all-out attack on AIPAC itself, asking, “Are AIPAC and the American Jewish establishment so out of touch with Jewish values that they would condone a neo-fascist as long as he supports Israel? … AIPAC is showing that it is willing to abandon all other values to ensure ‘pro-Israel at any cost.'” Of course, the fact that these NGOs themselves are collecting their paychecks from sinister, anti-Israel sources does not come up in their message.
Come Together Against Hate stands out in this leftwing crowd by avoiding a direct attack on AIPAC, sticking to its “talking points,” some of which are rooted in Jewish tradition:
- We are not protesting AIPAC. We are against hatred, the incitement of hatred and the ugliness that has engulfed this election season.
- Donald Trump has encouraged, defended and incited violence at his campaign rallies.
- Trump willingly embodies what Jewish tradition calls Sinat Chinam, senseless hatred. He hates indiscriminately, and refuses to condemn bigotry.
- As Meyer Gottlieb, President of Samuel Goldwyn Films and a Holocaust survivor, said in a feature story to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, “The truth of the matter is that the weapons of massive destruction are not bombs — they’re hatred, intolerance and bigotry.”
The group’s press release, issued by the group and signed by Rabbis David Paskin (Reform) and Jesse Olitzky (Conservative), reads: “AIPAC’s theme for Policy Conference is ‘Come Together’ Our grassroots effort spans many denominations, ages and political affiliations. We are committed to coming together against hate. We are committed to saying that Donald Trump does not speak for us or represent us, and his values are not AIPAC’s values. They are not the values of the Jewish community. They are not the values of our founders’ vision of an America where all citizens are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”