EMBOLDENED BY ITS OWN SILENCE

As I write this Post 5 days have passed since the streets of Paris were filled with the blood of the victims of Terrorists once again. My own community reacted with the immediacy, expressing the grief, the anger, the solidarity and the sorrow all of us feel:

"The Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago and its Jewish Community Relations Council stand with the people of Paris and with all people of conscience who wish to defend the principles of pluralism, freedom, and democracy. 

We mourn for those who were savagely murdered at the hands of Islamist terrorists, and pray for the speedy recovery of the injured.

The jihadist attacks in Paris, like those that preceded them, are part of a global onslaught waged by extremists and fanatics, who aim to sow chaos, death and the destruction of social and political order.  

We call on elected officials, civil society institutions, and security forces of all nations to fight the scourge of extremism and terrorism at home and abroad. Here in Chicago, we call on the communal representatives of every religion, race, and ethnicity, to work together to defend the fundamental values that form the bedrock of our open, pluralistic American society. 

Only through unity will we foil the terrorists’ evil designs."

Chicago's statement was titled "We Stand Together Against Terror."

Have you heard a word from those who supposedly represent us, from those who are supposed to know how to build consensus but do not...from JFNA? No, of course not. As the brilliant mimic, Dana Carvey, used to paraphrase George H. W. Bush ("41") -- "wouldn't be prudent, not prudent at all." We're prudent...to a fault. Surely, someone at 25 Broadway has their thumb in the air (and thereby removed from somewhere else for the purpose) checking which way the wind is blowing.

The Chair of Chicago's Jewish Community Relations Council, the co-sponsor of the Chicago resolution above, Chairs JFNA's Global Operations" Israel and Overseas Council. David Brown led the JFNA Solidarity Mission to Paris after the terrorists' attacks in January. I had hoped that David would be as vigorous a proponent for JFNA action when he assumed this newest position as he is in the Chicago community. It hasn't worked out that way.

JFNA took its own curated silence during the Iran Deal contretemps and attempted to conflate its silence into some sort of leadership. In fact the silence then was such an imagined triumph that Smilin' Jerry has converted that silence into an "achievement." And, so there are those at 25 Broadway who are seeking a way to replicate that "triumph" at this time of Paris's, France's. the world's tragedy.

And, so, at JFNA the silence is deafening. How pathetic it is and remains.

ADDENDUM:

Some of you have already commented reiterating a strongly held view first expressed on these pages in opposition to JFNA taking any position other than neutrality/silence in response to the Iran Deal. I came to understand that position given the divisions in our community/communities on that highly controversial deal. If you, however, believe that JFNA should remain silent on any and every matter -- including, but not limited to, "standing together against terror" as my federation and yours put it -- one has to question when you would have JFNA, which arguably represents us all, speak at all. 

Apparently some of you no longer believe in what was once a true representative democracy embodied in our membership organization. Enjoy yourselves bowling alone. It's just what Smilin' Jerry wants.

Rwexler