Unless something unexpected happens, next week the leadership of the Conference of Presidents, one of the most important organizations in the American Jewish community, will be transferred to a woman who opposes the values shared by 95% of American Jews. That means that under the od circumstances, this crucial organization will be paralyzed.
By Caroline B. Glick, ISRAEL HAYOM 04-24-2020
Last week an event occurred that will be remembered as a key moment in the disintegration of organized American Jewish support for Israel and American Jewish organizational life itself.
Last Friday, the leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations announced that the Conference’s nominating committee had selected Dianne Lob, the former president of HIAS to run unopposed for the position of chairman of the Conference’s Executive Board. Her election is scheduled to take place on April 28.
The Conference of Presidents – an umbrella group that comprises 53 Jewish American organizations – is widely viewed as the most important Jewish organization in the United States.
Why is Lob’s selection important? On the face of things, it was unremarkable. People who have known Lob for decades describe her as a garden variety New York Jewish liberal whose views on Israel are in keeping with the views of the vast majority of American Jews.
Members of the Conference of President, for their part, claim not to know her at all. During her term as chairman of HIAS, from 2016-2019, she didn’t participate in major Conference events like its trips to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Lob’s selection is an earthquake in American Jewish organizational life is not because of anything she has said or done, but because of her organizational affiliation with HIAS.
HIAS was established at the end of the 19th century under the name Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, to assist the hundreds of thousands of penniless Eastern European Jews who were immigrating at the time to the US. The last major group of Jewish immigrants HIAS was involved in resettling in the US were the Jews who left the Soviet Union between the 1970s and 1990s.
In 2014, HIAS officially set its Jewish roots aside. It abandoned its full name in favor of its acronym. HIAS CEO and President Mark Hetfield claimed that the world “Hebrew” is exclusionary.
As the Zionist Organization of America documented in a letter to the heads of the Conference of Presidents following Lob’s selection, in a declaration before a US federal court, HIAS attested that the refugees they serve today come from “Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Ukraine, Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Burundi, South Sudan, Uganda, Russia, Belarus, and Burma, among other countries. Many of these clients are Muslim.”
Lob herself attested that 90% of the Syrians and 60% of the Iraqis that HIAS brings to the US are Muslim.
HIAS’s contribution to Muslim immigration to the US is significant for two key reasons: First, it is indisputable that many of the Muslims immigrating to the US are anti-Semitic. As ZOA noted, “According to the ADL Global 100 Anti-Semitism Index, in 16 Muslim majority Middle Eastern countries, 74% to 93% of the population is antisemitic.”
So by bringing Muslims from Syria and Iraq to the US, HIAS is in all likelihood bringing anti-Semites to America.
The second reason HIAS’s efforts to bring Muslims to America is significant is because in its work in this arena HIAS has collaborated with Islamic groups associated with Islamic terrorist organizations. For instance, HIAS has worked with Islamic Relief. Islamic Relief is a branch of Islamic Relief Worldwide, (IRW). As the ZOA noted, Israel outlawed IRW because of its terrorist activities, including financing of Hamas terrorism.
HIAS has also worked with the Council on American Islamic Relations, (CAIR) which was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holyland Foundation trial where the Holyland Foundation was found guilty of funding Hamas.
HIAS collaborates with nominally Jewish anti-Israel groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Both groups are leading actors in the anti-Semitic BDS campaign against American Jews and Israel.
In June 2017, Hetfield and HIAS Vice President Rabbi Jennie Rosenn joined JVP, IfNotNow and other pro-BDS groups in signing a letter defending Linda Sarsour, the anti-Semitic Democratic political activist who has called for Israel’s destruction. Sarsour has publicly supported Hamas and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who himself is a vocal supporter of Adolf Hitler.
In Israel, HIAS works with other leftist extremist groups to prevent the deportation of illegal aliens from Sudan and Eritrea. This week they launched a protest with the Anti-Defamation League in Israel demanding that Israel expand the rights of illegal aliens who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Does Lob, who was the chairman of the board of HIAS from 2016-2019 support the close cooperation with terror-affiliated groups and anti-Semites that HIAS maintained under her leadership?
She says she doesn’t.
According to sources briefed on the details of Lob’s meetings with the Conference’s Nominating Committee, Lob said she was not involved in Hetfield and Rosenn’s decision to sign the letter defending Sarsour.
In a letter Lob sent to the members of the Conference after she was nominated to run unopposed for the chairmanship of the Conference’s Executive Board next Tuesday, Lob expressed a deep commitment to Israel and opposition to efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. She referred to the BDS campaign as “reprehensible.”
There are two ways to square this circle. It’s possible that Lob is lying and it’s possible that she’s telling the truth.
If Lob lied to the nominating committee and in her letter to the Conference members, and if she secretly shares the extreme pro-anti-Semite and anti-Israel positions of the extremists who control HIAS, then next Tuesday, the leadership of the Conference of Presidents will be transferred to a woman who opposes the values shared by 95% of American Jews.
If Lob told the truth to the nominating committee then she is shockingly incompetent. Because if she is telling the truth that means that for three years, she oversaw an organization that openly collaborated with groups with known ties to terrorist organizations and supported anti-Semites actively involved in the “reprehensible” BDS campaign against American Jews and against Israel. Presumably, Lob will bring the same incompetence with her to the Conference of Presidents when she takes over as chairman on Tuesday.
Conference officials say that even if Lob wants to transform the organization into a HIAS knockoff she won’t be able to. The conference’s bylaws and regulations and the rules of its executive committee obligate conference leaders to operate in line with the Jewish consensus.
Assuming these officials are right, the best-case scenario is that starting Tuesday, one of the most important organizations in the American Jewish community will be paralyzed.
Lob and her colleagues won’t be able to advance anti-Israel and pro-anti-Semitic policies. But with her at the helm, the Conference won’t be able to advance significant measures to support Israel and fight anti-Semites and anti-Semitic groups like Sarsour and Hamas. Such efforts will be stymied by Lob and her colleagues who will claim that they are “outside the American Jewish consensus.”
Lob’s selection came as a complete surprise to Conference insiders. She beat out two candidates with far more organizational experience and centrist credentials. But in truth, her selection is of a piece with recent developments in other key organizations.
Her rise doesn’t reflect a major radicalization of American Jews. Rather, it is the product of a long-term effort by a small cohort of deeply radical hard leftists within the American Jewish organizational world. They are anti-Zionist and pro-anti-Semitic. They are sympathetically inclined towards the BDS campaign. They are often hostile towards traditional Judaism and Orthodox Jews.
And they are scope-locked on their goal of taking over or neutralizing the large American Jewish organizations.
Facing these activists are the leaders of the large organizations. Many are retirement age or nearing retirement age. Many have failed to cultivate or recruit competent successors. Many are simply weak. The constituents these leaders serve – or don’t serve – are largely uninvolved, and unaware of what is happening.
Six years ago, these radical activists tried to bring J Street, (the anti-Israel group that supports the Palestinians and supports the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran) into the Conference of Presidents. Their efforts failed. Only 17 of the conference’s 52 members voted in favor. The activists behind the move reacted with rage to the vote. Conference of Presidents leaders and leaders of member organizations were vilified in the media. Most of them are unwilling to relive the experience. And whereas the J Street vote was by secret ballot, Tuesday’s vote will be a rollcall vote on a Zoom meeting.
So six years after their J Street defeat, not only is the anti-Israel left expected to gain a foothold in the Conference of Presidents on Tuesday. It is expected to take over the Conference of Presidents.
The Conference of Presidents isn’t alone. In 2014, Abraham Foxman retired from his position as president of the Anti-Defamation League after 28 years. Foxman did not groom a successor. In the event, he was replaced by Jonathan Greenblatt, an Obama White House alumni and environmental activist with no history of Jewish organizational work.
Since taking over, Greenblatt has transformed the ADL into a post-Jewish political group. Rather than fight anti-Semitism on the right and on the left, the ADL makes light of rising anti-Semitism on the left while exaggerating the political power of anti-Semites on the right to advance a clear political agenda. ADL was one of the groups that nominated Lob for the chairmanship.
Then there is AIPAC. Since J Street was established in 2007 to compete with AIPAC and began lobbying Democratic lawmakers to diminish their support for Israel, AIPAC has been steeped in existential crisis.
Most of AIPAC’s members and donors are Democrats. Consequently,
AIPAC’s leaders have shied away from opposing the party’s abandonment of Israel. In the rare instances where AIPAC has stood up to the rising anti-Israel forces in the Democratic Party, its protests have been followed rapidly by groveling apologies.
AIPAC President Betsy Korn was a member of the nominating committee that selected Lob.
At the rate the radical left is taking over major Jewish organizations, we can assume that within five years there will be a steep rise in the number of American Jewish groups that advocate on behalf of BDS. Our notion of a “friendly organization” will change from an organization that advances Jewish interests and supports Israel to an organization that doesn’t work against Jewish interests and opposes Israel.
Israel can fight this trend. But to do so it needs representatives in the US that will be willing to confront powerful, Jewish extremists on the left and empower and inspire the silent, exhausted and uninvolved Jewish majority.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Yes, it sounds surreal.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Does sound surreal.
@ Bear Klein:
I had a surreal argument at a party with two Orthodox Jews, one modern, not sure about the other, who both argued that bringing Muslim “refugees” from Syria, during that furor, was a Jewish thing to do in the name of Anne Frank of all people! Right, advocate as Jews for antisemites brainwashed from birth should be allowed to flood the country. Even if they weren’t mostly young, single, military age men. The second guy also took issue with Bibi for telling European Jews to come home to Israel. He was a German Jewish immigrant to America. Not a Zionist, I would say. Just guessing. I went to a seder at his house in Washington Heights, once, last time I bothered to go to one (they were all like this, but this was the worst) , and another super-Orthodox guy supported Obama against Bibi and condemned Bibi for speaking before Congress against the Iran Deal. He said Israel should do what America tells her to. He also spoke up for the Two State Solution but when I spoke of Area C, he said, “What’s that?” Nobody else at the table knew either. He also took offense when I quipped, “There are two kinds of antisemites; the good ones, and the one’s who are still breathing.” “Jews don’t kill” he thundered. Told me I should join the army. LOL. Forget Moshiach. We worship Messhugah. There. I exhausted my broken Hebrew.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I agree about HIAS it is really lost to say the least. From saving Jews to bringing their enemies to them??? Crazy!
@ Bear Klein:
One should be founded. HIAS is no longer such an organization. It will not become one again. It is working to bring the enemies of the Jews to America’s shores. It should be disbanded and permanently dismantled Kaput. bye, bye. Into the trashbin of history. Time to go the way of the Rosenwald Fund. Going, going, gone! And good riddance to rubbish!!! I disagree with Glick about AIPAC’s value. It actually opposed the policies of the Israeli government at one point in it’s pursuit of the chimerical two state solution. Only 2 groups I know of worth their salt., ZOA and Herut.
@ Michael S:
They are for Trump. They are indicating the Jews of the left will lose influence if Trump wins. The right-wing Jews will gain influence. To quote myself:
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, I don’t know if I’ve ever before seen such a confusing exchange, as that you just fielded with Yamit! On the one hand, you say a Trump win in November will destroy nearly all Jewish influence in American politics; yet on the other hand, you say a Trump win will “solidify” ZOA and Israeli nationalists such as Kushner and Greenblatt.
I wish both of you would be plain, about whom you support to win in November. Reality tells us that if we don’t elect the Trump team, we have only two viable alternatives:
1. A win by the Democrats, who are fielding antisemitic Bernie Sanders and antisemitic Joe Biden, or
2. Anarchy and martial law.
There is serious work we all could be doing, to affect this election. Where do you two stand? With Trump and Israel, or against them?
yamit82 Said:
Quite right.Even now they have very little influence, AIPAC is a shadow of its former self. After 8 years of Obama in which anti Israel policies became the vogue, and J-Street rose to challenge and surpass AIPAC in many ways.
Then with ADL and other Jewish organizations gravitating to the protection of Muslims and embracing anti Israel policies AIPAC was left in the lurch and began watering down its support for Israel.
With the election of Trump, ZOA rose to prominance.. That coupled with the policies and principles of President Trump and his pro Israel Jewish team of Kushner, Greenblatt, MIller and Weinberg, the Jewish right became ascendant.
A second term will solidify this.
@ yamit82:
“endangered today” Just wait for the effects of the lockdowns and who will be blamed for everything (as usual). There will be plenty of “Jews left in the diaspora that might be considered endangered today”, if not all of them.
Actually the GOP Jewish Caucus plus Orthodox Jews (~30% of the Jewish voters) will have some more clout. The lefty Jews in the Dem party will be more diminished. Especially since they seem to keep butt kissing the haters of Jews and Israel on the far left.
@ yamit82:
“If Trump wins in Nov the American Jewish community will have lost nearly all political influence in America”
This is classic Yamit. Whom are you rooting for? Biden will likely tank because of “Me Too”, retiring the somnambulent zombie. Are you cheering for Bernie?
@ yamit82:
There are about 20K Jews in Iran and a few here and there. Read my comment above it was done with research, HIAS did in several cases get 1000s of people to Israel. Ethiopian Jews, Soviet Jews, North African Jews.
@ Bear Klein:
There are few Jews left in the diaspora that might be considered endangered today. Israel has mostly drained the diaspora in most regions. My personal feelings are that any Jew today who might be endangered it is of his or her past decisions and choices. No Jew should either extend or endanger themselves for these… They all had numerous opportunities in the past.
If my memory is correct HIAS always directed Jewish refugees to settle in the West especially USA when possible…. Seldom if ever to Palestine or Israel.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
There is still a need for a Jewish organization outside of Israel (which should work with Israel) to save Jews from places like Iran. Israel takes most of this on themselves but Jews with other passports and separate funding could enhance the effort.
HIAS if it settling Jew haters in the USA is certainly a miserable excuse for what was an important Jewish Organization.
HIAS helped my father when he escaped Communist Hungary and came to the U.S. in 1946. It is no longer the same organization and should be disbanded. Ironically, there was a short-lived organization called, UNRRA, which helped place Jews from the displaced persons camps, known as Dps. It disbanded after it accomplished its mission. Not long after, UNRWA was born, again with the opposite mission, to help the enemies of the Jewish people. Is this a coincidence, I ask?
“United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in 1943, it became part of the United Nations in 1945, and it largely shut down operations in 1947. Its purpose was to “plan, co-ordinate, administer or arrange for the administration of measures for the relief of victims of war in any area under the control of any of the United Nations through the provision of food, fuel, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services”.[1] Its staff of civil servants included 12,000 people, with headquarters in New York. Funding came from many nations, and totaled $3.7 billion, of which the United States contributed $2.7 billion; Britain, $625 million; and Canada, $139 million.
UNRRA cooperated closely with dozens of volunteer charitable organizations, who sent hundreds of their own agencies to work alongside UNRRA. In operation only four years, the agency distributed about $4 billion worth of goods, food, medicine, tools, and farm implements at a time of severe global shortages and worldwide transportation difficulties. The recipient nations had been especially hard hit by starvation, dislocation, and political chaos. It played a major role in helping Displaced Persons return to their home countries in Europe in 1945-46. Many of its functions were transferred to several UN agencies, including the International Refugee Organization and the World Health Organization. As an American relief project, it was later replaced by the Marshall Plan, which began operations in 1948.[2] However, the historian Jessica Reinisch has shown that UNRRA should not just figure as a chapter in U.S. history. UNRRA’s uniqueness was that it managed to bring together very different partners and models of international relief, each of which had their own history and antecedent…” In the same way, the International communty came up with the Geneva Accords, after it was too late to help the Jews and then only used them, in a deceptive way, against Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Relief_and_Rehabilitation_Administration
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/do-the-jews-really-need-a-conference-of-presidents/
@ yamit82:
HIAS has helped Jews escape to Israel and elsewhere in its history. Clearly it was not a Zionist only organization but a Jewish rescue organization.
During the 1960s, HIAS rescued Jews from Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya and arranged with Morocco’s King Hassan for the evacuation of his country’s huge Jewish community to France and, eventually, Israel Of almost one million Jewish refugees from Muslim countries, about 80,000 were resettled by HIAS.
The Soviet Jewry exodus
Beginning in the mid-1960s, HIAS returned to the work initiated at its founding – assisting immigrants escaping Russia with their arrival and resettlement needs in the U.S. Close to a century later, a new Jewish exodus from the previous Russian Empire – now the USSR – started with a trickle of departures. Throughout the entire era of Soviet Jewish exodus, HIAS’ operations centered around two beliefs: 1) Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people and 2) emigrants have the right to live together with extended family in their country of choice.
If Trump wins in Nov the American Jewish community will have lost nearly all political influence in America and will not be relevant for Israel…. Asians and Muslims have as much or more money than Jews in America and Jews are losing the numbers game as a % of the population due to immigration and negative Jewish birthrate…. In one more generation, due to massive intermarriage and assimilation, there may not be a viable Jewish community in America.
@ Bear Klein:
HIAS from it’s inseption has always been anti-Zionist.
After their efforts in support of Russian Jewry, they (HIAS) have lost their Raison d’etre
This state of affairs is directly tied to many Jews being seduced by the siren melody of “Progressive” universalism, where all non-genetic, particularist aspects of individual identity (e.g., religion,nationality, etc.) are deemed evil and divisive and must be eradicated for the sake of a chimerical, elusive and fanciful universalism that unfailingly brings poverty, misery, cynicism and totalitarianism whenever implemented. It is completely antithetical to Judaism, despite the superficial similarities with respect to social justice used to lure the naive. In the end, they work against the legitimate interests of their own people, self-righteously convinced that they are the “Good Germans” without ever critically analyzing the fabricated narratives invented and fed to them by hostile others who seek to fragment the Jews under the “time-honored” strategy of Divide and Conquer
Sad to hear see that HIAS has become a naive organization that no longer helps Jews and has lost its purpose.
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society helped save my parents lives by facilitating and financing their immigration and 100s of other Jews to the Dominican Republic during the Shoah.
That is where I was born.