On June 12, the New York Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) held its annual gala, and honored Bill Thompson, chair of the board of CUNY, at whose law school graduation speaker an immigrant from Yemen delivered a viciously anti-Jewish commencement speech in May.
The JCRC issued a typically weak and ineffective statement expressing disapproval of the commencement speech, but has never demanded that anyone be held accountable for a speech which incited genocidal anti-Semitism.
With the support of JLP, a group of grassroots Jewish activists protested the JCRC gala.
While standing outside the award ceremony, Professor Jeffrey Lax, and CUNY economics professor Susan Aranoff, were verbally abused by former New York JCRC president Ronald Wiener.
Wiener accused Lax of “creating schisms” within the Jewish community, and behaving like the Jewish Zealots in 70 C.E. whose divisive hatred of less bellicose Jews enabled the Second Temple’s destruction.
Accusing good-faith activists of dividing the Jewish community is a technique frequently employed by leaders who are failing to defend America’s Jews.
These Jewish leaders prefer to ignore the reality that many of those who attack Jews, both physically and ideologically, are the same immigrant “strangers” whom their organizations have so generously “welcomed” into America.
To learn more about our efforts to expose Jewish leadership failures, and suggest effective solutions, our new book, Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, is now available on Amazon here.
