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J Street Denied Entry To US Jewish Umbrella Group | ||
2014-05-02 | ||
[Ynet] Left-wing Israel lobby says its bid was 'thwarted' by right-wing organizations, despite strong support from major American Jewish groups.
J Street said that it applied to the Conference of Presidents because it values "Jewish community and the concept of a broad tent of pro-Israel organizations that truly represents our community's diversity and dynamism" but that its "bid was thwarted by organizations on the right of the community who do not share those same values." At the secret-ballot vote in the umbrella group's New York offices, 22 organizations voted against J Street's inclusion and three abstained, leaving the "pro-Israel, pro-Peace" lobby with only half of the votes it needed. The right-wing Zionist Organization of American lobbied heavily against J Street's admission, citing the dovish group's association with BDS supporters and its previous statements on Israeli positions. J Street denied that the vote spelled a rejection of the group by American Jewry: "When an organization like ours is kept out of the American Jewish community's official Israel umbrella organization, despite broad support, we should all be asking ourselves some hard questions. "In many ways the vote illustrates one of the key reasons that J Street was created in the first place and why we continue to grow: a large segment of the American Jewish community feels that it does not have a home or a voice within its traditional structures." The executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, claimed J Street "won the popular vote" and that the group would not have been denied entry if the Conference of Presidents voting process accounted for the size of an organization, according to a report in the New York-based magazine Jewish Daily Forward.
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