In fact, left wing leaders themselves brutally and regularly attack people whose policies they disagree with.
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
After Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Leiter legitimately and understandably condemned the “J Street cancer” that lobbied to stop arms sales to Israel during wartime, far left wing, extremist, anti-Israel J Street wrote a letter, signed by left wing Jewish leaders, attacking Amb. Leiter and hypocritically demanding that disagreements must be conducted with “humanity, humility and respect for the dignity of every Jew” and that “leaders on both sides of the ocean bear a heightened responsibility to lower the flames rather than fan them further.”
That’s rich, considering how the Jewish leaders who signed J Street’s letter — such as Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) President Rick Jacobs, Reform’s David Saperstein, Amb. Dan Kurtzer, head of National Council for Jewish Women, T’ruah CEO Jill Jacobs, Americans for Peace Now (APN) and New Israel Fund (NIF) — have spent years targeting, falsely maligning, disrespecting, name-calling as racist, launching petitions, attempting to oust from the Conference of Presidents, attempting to censor, and fanning the flames of hatred towards ZOA and ZOA President Morton Klein.
For example, Rabbi Rick Jacobs and other extreme left wing signatories, who years ago defended Black Lives Matter, went into full attack mode against ZOA and Mr. Klein, after Morton Klein legitimately and accurately pointed out that the Black Lives Matter/Movement for Black Lives (BLM/M4BL) organizations’ platform, social media, speeches and events promoted vicious anti-Israel, anti-Jewish blood libels and BDS; and that BLM/M4BL incited a violent antisemitic pogrom in Los Angeles and nationwide antisemitic Days of Rage; and met with and were affiliated with designated terrorist organization PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and PFLP front groups; as well as being corrupt.
Reform leader Rick Jacobs, who led the campaign, didn’t simply (wrongly) defend and praise Black Lives Matter. Jacobs bellowed at a Conference of Presidents meeting that “Black Lives Matter is the civil rights movement of our time!” Jacobs and the other left wing signatories didn’t even try to engage in gentlemanly debate, or attempt to rationally debunk the reams of evidence that ZOA compiled, or “engage” with ZOA at all. Jacobs and the other left wing signatories never responded to Morton Klein with any of the “humanity, humility, and respect” that they now demand of Amb. Leiter.
Instead, URJ president Rick Jacobs and the Conservative movement’s Rabbi Blumenthal launched a campaign to smear and remove ZOA and Morton Klein from membership in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Rick Jacobs initiated a letter with 15 other groups (including other current J Street letter signatory groups) falsely accusing ZOA & ZOA President Morton Klein of “racism” and called for ostracizing ZOA because ZOA condemned BLM/M4BL’s vicious antisemitism and anti-Israelism.
And after ZOA respectfully requested an apology from those who falsely maligned ZOA and Mr. Klein, only one individual (Stuart Appelbaum of the Jewish Labor Committee) had the decency to apologize. Notably, none of the other groups that defamed and wrongly attempted to oust ZOA have ever apologized. When Morton Klein recently asked one of the major signers for a “private” apology, he began to scream at Mort in front of Mort’s wife Rita to “get your face away from me.”
We wonder, where was Rick Jacobs’ and his comrades’ “humanity, humility and respect” for other Jewish leaders and responsibility for “lowering the flames” then?
In addition, signatories including New Israel Fund, a Reform Jewish group, and J Street launched a petition to remove ZOA from the Boston JCRC, primarily because of ZOA’s condemnation of the anti-Israel group Black Lives Matter. NIF’s representative admitted that he spent 8 months attempting to dredge up dirt to throw at ZOA for the petition. That’s “humanity, humility and respect”? ZOA had to waste precious time combating NIF’s, J Street’s, etc. phony charges and endure despicable attacks to successfully defeat their petition.
Furthermore, J Street organized a misleading astroturf letter from supposed “student leaders,” which falsely attacked ZOA as “racist”, “bigoted”, and “Islamophobic”, and called for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to oust and censure Conference co-founding charter member ZOA. ZOA’s analysis of the signatories uncovered that many were J Street officials and affiliates, or members of anti-Israel groups such as SJP, JVP and J Street offshoot If Not Now. Where was J Street’s and its fellow travelers’ “humanity, humility, and respect” and “lowering the flames” when it wrongly attacked ZOA for pointing out dangers to the Jewish community then? Again, no apology for their defamatory charges.
Notably, from the very outset, J Street targeted ZOA’s Morton Klein (showing him speaking and placing Mr. Klein in the middle of J Street’s infamous tic-tac-toe board of targets in J Street’s launch video) and targeted Christian Zionists such as Pastor John Hagee and Newt Gingrich (on the J Street target board’s other squares). J Street falsely accused these staunch Zionists of “blocking the path to peace,” and having “loud voices that don’t speak for you,” and condemned these Zionists for opposing pressuring Israel to give up her land to Palestinian terrorists.
Where was J Street’s “humanity, humility and respect” and “lowering the temperature” when they falsely accused ZOA, Mort Klein and Christian Zionists of blocking peace, etc.?
It’s clear that left wing leaders only demand “respect, humanity and humility … and lower the temperature” when people they agree with are attacked—not when people they disagree with are attacked. In fact, left wing leaders themselves brutally and regularly attack people whose policies they disagree with.
ZOA has not been the only victim of J Street and its co-signers unrelenting, arrogant, duplicitous, disrespectful attacks and fanning the flames of hatred. J Street defames and damages the State of Israel, its people and its duly elected leaders in virtually every press release, speech, lobbying offensive and election funding operation – with no regard for “humanity, humility, respect” or “lowering the flames.” J Street’s recent campaigns to cut off arms sales to Israel – while Israel is in the middle of a seven-front existential war – is beyond the pale of any shred of decency or humanity towards Israel’s men, women and children.
J Street’s and its comrades’ attack on Amb. Leiter for telling the truth is also case-in-point – especially after Amb. Leiter suffered the pain of losing his heroic son Major (Res.) Moshe Yedidyah, a physician and father of six young children, who died in battle defending the Jewish people in northern Gaza in November 2023.
And we must not forget another major J Street signatory, Soros-funded T’ruah and its leader Jill Jacobs’ calls for halting weapons sales to Israel; and T’ruah’s vile campaign to defund and remove the tax exemption from the Central Fund of Israel (CFI). T’ruah’s campaign would prevent CFI from providing funds to 350 Israeli humanitarian charities dedicated to caring for and providing scholarships to special needs persons; providing nutrition; poverty relief; combating ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease); battered women shelters and other women’s assistance; helping Ethiopians and other vulnerable groups obtain jobs; helping bereaved mothers, fathers, widows, orphans and siblings who have lost loved ones to terror and other tragedies to rebuild their lives and create meaning out of suffering; providing chickens to the needy; a news agency which provides accurate information; aid for Israeli expellees from Gush Katif (in Gaza) who are still suffering; funds for purchasing land; security; medical organizations; humanitarian needs of soldiers; rabbinic training; and meals for the elderly in need.
Where is T’ruah’s humanity? Sorely missing.