Washington – The leaders of three of the four major Jewish religious streams were not invited to a White House briefing on issues “impacting the community,” nor was the Jewish community’s leading civil rights advocacy group.
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Officials of three Orthodox umbrella groups — Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel, and America and Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) — confirmed their leaders had been invited to the meeting, which is to take place Tuesday.
Officials of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements, meantime, said the movements were not invited. A Washington D.C.-area Conservative rabbi, Stuart Weinblatt, was invited.
A request to the White House for comment went unanswered by press time. The more liberal streams have clashed with the White House on a range of policies, including immigration and President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, seen as fueling bias. The Orthodox movements have been more welcoming of White House policies, particularly relating to Israel, including Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Previous administrations have engaged with the broad range of the community, whatever differences they might have had with individual organizations.
“It’s clear the Trump White House invited a subset of the Jewish community and intentionally excluded others,” Halie Soifer, the director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in an email. “As with everything this president does, this meeting appears to be defined by narrow political calculation as opposed to genuine outreach to the Jewish community.”
Also not invited was the Anti-Defamation League, the country’s leading Jewish civil rights group. Nor was J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, or the Israel Policy Forum, a group dedicated to a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, another anti-defamation group, also was not invited, although its founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier, delivered a blessing at Trump’s inauguration.
Among the groups which did make the cut were the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Zionist Organization of America, the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, the Coalition for Jewish Values, the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“Gathering with Jewish leaders,” an invitation viewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency says. “You are invited to a discussion with key Administration officials on pertinent issues impacting the community.”
It did not specify what the issues are.
Why should the ADL be invited? Jonathan Greenblatt to this date, has never once apologized to Trump for his defamatory and vicious comments, whereby he accused Trump for causing the 2017 threats to the JCC’s in the USA. In fact, those threats were caused by an American-Israeli teenager, who has since been convicted, and sentenced to a long prison term. Greenblatt never had the decency, as did the other phony groups, to apologize to Trump. At least, the religious groups had the decency to be respectful to Trump. They thanked him profusely for his release of Rubashkin. Not once did the ADL ever thank Trump for having Rubashkin’s sentence commuted. The ADL and those other phony groups, did bupkis for Rubashkin, as they have for Jonathan Pollard.
although I think liberal leftists are anti Israel and self hating Jews who push laws that punish orthodox Jews, still, to keep these idiots out of Trump’s speech seems flawless……
do you understand?
so far no real jews were menioned. All supposed jews hardly leading Jewish lives. The ADL are the worst of all. They only rile up anisemitism. Rather not inviting any Jews than these Jews that so called claim to represent Jews.
Uh……
Which orthodoxy groups (plural not single) did
O’bheima invite?
ADL is left wing hack group. They should come out and condemn all the anti Semitic Congresswoman and all the stuff on college campuses.
To #3- No, I don’t understand; Trump was right in refusing to invite them. You wouldn’t invite people whom you can’t stand to a Simcha, would you?
Here’s my question. The Orthodox groups have “Jewish” needs, and Trump is looking to be accommodating. Inviting them for this event just makes sense. It is not about payback. It is about recognizing that their services address the needs of Jews.
The organizations that were excluded have Jewish names, but not Jewish needs or services. In fact, many of them actually undermine the true needs of Jews, in America and in Israel. They are in opposition to the purpose of this event. Why bring in such riff-raff?
I printed out these comments, and I am going to post them in my shul, as an example of how far we have fallen from the days when Jews had asserted group interests through communal and community leaders of all stripes…but were not overtly partisan.
And certainly Jews were not so politically partisan as to right off as fake or unworthy huge demographics of their fellow American Jews. Your positions are more Tea Party Conservative than they are Jewish…you have totally lost sight of the meaning of kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh.
If you only knew how many of rights you have as frum Yidden for which you owe a debt to liberal activists like the ADL…you don’t remember the days when Shabbos or Yom Tov observance could still jeopardize employment for many…
gotta love Trump. he says it as it is. no curtailing, patronizing or the likes for this ohev yisroel. gd bless Trump!!
jewish council for public affairs is a VERY liberal group that advocates for increased Muslim immigration due to social justice.
I have to agree with Educated Archy regarding the ADL, and some of the other phony organizations, which purport to represent Jews. The ADL and the others, whom Trump did not invite, did bupkis for Rubashkin. Over 110 distinguished jurists, legal scholars, Judges, AG’s, the former head of the CIA, and the FBI, and a former Vice President of the USA, agreed in a written letter, that the prosecution of Shalom Rubashkin was tainted, and that the sentence given by Judge Linda Reade to Rubashkin, was excessive. Even Judge Reade’s two ex-husbands (goyim), approached Rubashkin’s defense team, and stated that she was an anti-semite. Her third husband owned stock in the prison system, and she and the prosecutor (Tieg), discussed the raid on Rubashkin’s plant in advance. The government deliberately targeted Rubashkin, because of PETA. Five years would have been more than enough time for him to have served, for his financial crimes. When Trump commuted Rubashkin’s sentence to time served, it reminded me of the words, which we recite at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance….”With Liberty and JUSTICE FOR ALL”.
Judge Read is a Repyblican and iowa is a republican Trumpist state.
This just confirms that Trump has been sent as a gift from Hashem to the Jewish people. He understand well which segments of Judaism are the real ones, and the ones that matter. G-d bless him always!