Won't they ever learn?

From the JTA

With G.A. remarks about Bush,
leader shows election rift unhealed
By Rachel Pomerance
NEW YORK, Nov. 21 (JTA) — Washington spinmasters William Kristol and James Carville traded their typical quick-witted takes on the presidential election in a plenary session at the annual gathering of the North American Jewish federation system.
But the real zinger came from the master of ceremonies.

Shoshana Cardin dismayed some members of the audience — and delighted others — with her prepared remarks on the challenges the Jewish community faces under the Bush administration.

“There is a contradiction between our agenda and the Republican sweep,” said Cardin, a past president of the federation system and of JTA. “The struggle to adapt to an agenda that is as Christian” as the Republican agenda, she said, “is our struggle.”

She also said President Bush’s comments in his first news conference after re-election, when he pledged to “reach out to all who share my goals,” were troubling.

“That doesn’t exactly include me,” Cardin said in her remarks Nov. 15. “To reach out means to all, not only to those who share his goals.”

Cardin’s speech was one of two clear ripples the presidential election sent through the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly, held Nov. 14-17 in Cleveland.

The second controversy, over whether to send Bush a letter congratulating him on his election victory, was further proof that the Jewish community hasn’t completely come together in support of the administration a few weeks after a bitterly divisive election.

Cardin is a registered Democrat, but she told JTA that she voted for Bush because she believes he understands the importance of the war on terrorism and has the strength to wage it.

Though some in the audience took offense at Cardin’s comments, she said they weren’t meant to bash the president but to stress the need for the Jewish community to emphasize its own values, which sometimes may clash with Christian ones.

“We have to recognize that we are in a wonderful host country, but the calendar is Christian and the values that are being espoused now by ‘Middle America,’ if you will, are Christian values, and we have to speak up and express our values, which are not identical,” she told JTA. She noted, for example, the difference in religious Christian and Jewish views about when life begins.

Not everyone took Cardin’s remarks at the G.A. as she intended them.

At least one federation director, who asked to remain anonymous, walked out of the session because he found the talk inappropriately partisan. While Cardin’s words did win some applause, several in the audience said Cardin had exploited her role, using the stage as a bully pulpit.

“I don’t believe the G.A. is the forum for it,” Robert Goldberg, chairman of the UJC’s board of trustees, said of Cardin’s comments.

Cardin, who was recognized as “an exceptional volunteer leader” at the General Assembly — the quarterly Journal of Jewish Communal Service was dedicated to her — is known for speaking her mind.

The most famous example of that came under the first President Bush, when Cardin told him during a White House meeting that his depiction of himself fending off pro-Israel activists in a dispute over U.S. loan guarantees fueled anti-Semitism.

The president not only apologized to Jewish officials for his comment, but reportedly also shed a tear over it.

The second political controversy came at a joint meeting of the UJC governing bodies, the Board of Trustees and Delegate Assembly, during debate on a motion to congratulate President Bush on his re-election.

The motion passed the Delegate Assembly nearly unanimously, but not before a round of public comments showed that some took issue with the idea.

The debate shows “that there are lingering tensions within the Jewish community, which I think reflect the fact that there are lingering tensions within the American community,” said Eric Stillman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans.

Stillman reminded those present that President Bush had congratulated former UJC President and CEO Stephen Hoffman when he took over the organization in 2001.

The idea of sending a letter was meant as “a positive gesture that UJC and the federations wanted to demonstrate to whoever won the presidency that we were looking forward to working with that person,” Stillman told JTA.

Daniel Chejfec, executive director of the Central Kentucky Jewish Federation, said he voted against the motion because the federation system should be non-partisan.

“Our main trust is not to support one party or the other” but “to keep the community together and to build consensus,” Chejfec said. Sending Bush a letter of congratulations would polarize the community, he said.

Others said a congratulatory letter was not a political statement.

President Bush “should know that he has the support of the Jewish community through the federation system,” Goldberg told JTA. “It’s a message to the president: ‘Now that you’re elected, we’re going to all support you.’ ”

John Ruskay, executive vice president and CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, received widespread applause when he noted that the country already had chosen its leader, and the Jewish community would need his aid on numerous matters.

Richard Wexler of Chicago, UJC’s vice chairman, said he doubted whether the letter to President Bush is likely to “make a whole lot of difference in how his administration deals with issues that relate to the things we value.”

Still, he noted, “every Shabbat we say a prayer for the leader of our country, and maybe this resolution was in keeping with that.”

But Wexler noted the importance of impartiality in the federation system, and had strong words for Cardin.

“The leadership of our communities need to be impartial in public gatherings, and when she was given this program to moderate I’m sure it was given with the expectation that she would keep the trust that was imposed on her by her selection,” he said. “Instead, she chose to use it as her personal political forum.”

Cardin, however, said she “was told to give my perception of the result of the election for the Jewish community.”

She was not told to be controversial, though “giving my perspective would automatically be controversial,” she admitted.

“It’s not at all my personal agenda,” she said. “I believe this is what we’re experiencing.”

She knew that Carville and Kristol would provide both sides of the partisan debate, she said, and “I would explain what I thought are our challenges.”

Cardin added that she thought the debate over congratulating Bush was superfluous.

“It’s appropriate that we acknowledge the victory in the election,” she said, “and the fact that he is our president for the next four years.”