YINZ/YIDZ

Jeremy Ben-Ami and Rabbi Eric Yoffie held a “Jewish Community Town Hall” this afternoon moderated by Jane Eisner, editor of The Forward. Yoffie is the president of the Union for Reform Judaism. In December, Yoffie and J Street started a small war of words over the way Israel conducted Operation Cast Lead.

Yoffie is one of the few public critics of J Street to attend the conference. The Town Hall more closely resembled a formal debate: Yoffie spoke, Ben-Ami responded, and then both of them took questions from the audience.

Yoffie and Ben-Ami seemed to agree on more than they disagree, but they did disagree notably on a couple of points, particularly the Gaza War and the Goldstone Report. The nature of that disagreement, to my mind, is when and how to criticize Israel. Ben-Ami said to consider allegations; Yoffie said to consider context first.

 

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We just finished a press conference with J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben –Ami, where he got asked for positions on many of the major issues concerning Israel.

“This is truly the birth of a movement,” Ben-Ami said about the conference, which he said now has 1,500 attendees and will includes around 200 meetings on Capitol Hill during a lobbying day later in the week.

So here is what the movement believes.

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There is a flurry of tweeting at #jstreet.

Well, I've arrived at the Grand Hyatt in DC and I'm just waiting for things to begin.

My drive took a little bit longer than expected, and I got into DC about two minutes before the opening session was supposed to begin. I hauled it through the odd grid of our capital until I saw a collection of yarmulkes on a street corner. I followed those into the hotel, only to discover that, of course, as with any gathering of our brothers and sisters, the event is running a bit late.

So that gives me a few moments to get situated in the back of the room here with the other media and check for familiar faces. But just a few, because it looks like they're getting started.

I’m about to get in my car and drive to Washington D.C., where I’ll be attending the J-Street Conference tonight through Tuesday. I’ll be blogging throughout the conference on Yinz/Yidz, tweeting with the hashtag #yinzyidz and hopefully coming back with a good story for the upcoming issue of the Jewish Chronicle as well.

For those who don’t know, J-Street is an Israel lobbying group created 18 months ago as a more liberal alternative to the traditional lobbying groups, like AIPAC. It’s generated a lot of talk since then. Some people see J-Street as a welcome change in public discourse on what it means to be “pro-Israel” in America. Others question whether J-Street is truly “pro-Israel,” and whether its often critical take on Israeli policy is beneficial.

I’m going to the conference for a couple of reasons.

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