Apologist Accepted
A senator's spokesman scolds a Washington, D.C., Jewish leader over everyone's favorite Jewish state
Ron Halber is from New York. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. Because it’s well known that New Yorkers are tough. Far tougher than the folks down in Washington, D.C., including the elected officials, many of whom have courtly, polite or fiercely detached funders and constituents back home to keep them soft.
For many years now, Halber has led the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, an organization with a name vying for the most words with the greatest number of letters in the Jewish world. Simply put, the JCRC is the liaison between Washington’s organized Jewish community and other ethnic and religious groups and local and state governments.
By “organized Jewish community,” I mean Jewish organizations — and the people involved with them — including synagogues, Jewish community centers (there are three in the Washington area) day schools and the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. It is from the organized Jewish community that Jewish leaders, a term you might have heard, are drawn.
There are two types of Jewish leaders: “volunteers,” who range somewhere on the ladder of leadership, which peaks with the large donors, who can be as silent or influential as they want while still leading. Then there are the “professionals,” the salaried and executive employees. Ron Halber is a professional.
When I was a writer, then editor, of Washington Jewish Week, Ron and I had our ups and downs. Sometimes we’d meet for coffee and talk about what was going on in the community. Sometimes I’d piss him off. Once he called to ream me out, then realized it was my birthday, apologized and wished me happy birthday.
I’ve used the term “organized Jewish community.” Ron and all the leaders just call it “the community,” although there may be more Jews outside it than within it. Traditionally, the community is genially liberal — pro-LGBTQ, pro-choice, pro-cultural diversity, pro-civil rights, pro-immigration, pro-social welfare. And pro-Israel. So is the JCRC.
But there is a strong pull to conformity. And increasingly — and torrentially since the folks of Hamas chose to massacre 1.200 Israelis and kidnap 251 more on Oct. 7, 2023 — the pro-Israel front has grown exponentially darker. The regular appearance of painted swastikas, a high school student film depicting the kidnapping of Jews, a successful campaign to put a vegan restaurant with Israeli roots out of business, and the open-air murder of two employees of the Israeli Embassy. What was merely hostility to Israel has metastasized into blood-curdling hate.
Even now, as I write from my retirement dacha, I’ll contact Ron for his reaction to some outrage. Ron has his ear to the ground. And he’s from New York.
This story really begins on Dec. 3, when a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, in a statement, said that “Ron Halber has become an apologist for the Netanyahu government.”
Van Hollen is barely tolerated by the Jewish community because of his “outspoken criticism of the Israeli government over its prosecution of the war in Gaza,” as JTA writes, continuing:
On social media, Van Hollen has frequently criticized Israel’s war conduct, including a July post where he wrote that it was “unconscionable that American taxpayers are paying for these killings.” He has also taken action offline: In September, he introduced a resolution in the Senate calling on President Donald Trump to recognize Palestinian statehood, and he has supported legislation to block U.S. sales of arms to Israel.
“Sen. Van Hollen, I think, has dramatically lost his way with support for Israel. He’s become the leading senator agitating against Israel in the United States Senate,” Halber told reporters in response to a question, according to Jewish Insider, which first reported the exchange of fire. “His social media is filled with a lack of empathy for Jewish suffering. It’s filled with a lack of empathy for Israel’s strategic position. It’s almost like [he] cannot wait for the next opportunity to jump down Israel’s throat,” JTA reported.
Long before the Gaza war, I had noticed that some Jewish leaders were suspicious of Van Hollen. Like AIPAC, they are probably more comfortable with a moderate Republican than with this perplexing Democrat who periodically plucks political prisoners out of captivity in foreign lands and brings them home — including a Jew from suburban Washington who was held by the Cubans for five years.
The war in Gaza has led to a mass defection from the mainstream through the right and left exits, leaving those of us who are still in the center frantically improvising. While the JCRC’s positions on Israel resemble nothing like the right’s obsessive hatred of the Palestinians, or the left’s eager gathering of buzzwords powerful enough to push the Jews into the sea, the JCRC seems to stand, feet planted, arms crossed, giving no quarter. Its press releases feel boiler plate. They don’t charm the reader.
In other words, Ron Halber and the JCRC reflect the position of the Jewish community today: straight up the center and a slight turn to the right. Netanyahu doesn’t stay up at night worrying that he’s keeping American Jewish leaders up at night. It’s a tight spot for any Jewish leader to have to maneuver in.
Perhaps this, coupled with Van Hollen’s own proclivities, causes the senator see an apologist when he puts on his Israel glasses.
Good points. Unfortunately everyone feels the need to respond to anything these days, perhaps under the premise of "there's no such thing as bad publicity." But atually, there is. Everybody wants the last word, so I give it to you if you choose!
Good piece. Ron is a very solid professional in what is basically an impossible job (but does get you lots of free food, so there's that). One wonders -- although less and less as it becomes clearer ) if van Hollen is jockeying to be a nominee for something bigger (unlikely the top job, but maybe a Sec. of State -- if there's any state left). It plays much better to attack someone than to say, "We disagree but have had a good relationship despite that." And the band plays on...