Haaretz' columnist, Chemi Shalev, let JFNA's leadership have it in the sharpest terms in his closing column on the soporific GA in Jewish General Assembly's long-awaited confrontation with Netanyahu yields self-defeating humiliation instead -- GA 2018.https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/ga-2018-tel-aviv/.premium-the-ga-s-long-awaited-confrontation-with-netanyahu-yields-self-defeating-humiliation-1.6591813
Indeed.
What Shalev was referring to was outgoing JFNA Board Chair, Richard Sandler's, obsequious "questioning" of the Prime Minister at the GA closing plenary today. Citing Sandler's "fawning admiration" of the Prime Minister as evidence of how out of touch JFNA is with the American Jewry it is supposed to not just represent but lead, Chemi lamented the "uncritical adulation" embodied in Sandler's nodding head and expressions of thanks to Bibi even as Richard had to have realized he and his audience were not getting any real answers to any of the hard questions.
Readers may remember the same episode at last year's GA in Los Angeles where Bibi appeared on-screen from Jerusalem. It was in that filibuster that the Prime Minister completely dissembled when describing the breach of his Kotel Agreement and Sandler, our Chair, responded "thanks for the clarification." This time, as Shalev put it so well, Sandler "...allowed (the PM) to spin his fantasies without interruption" or even respectful challenge. In his obsequity Sandler, for JFNA. "undermined their own demand for a new kind of conversation between Israel and American Jews."
This GA ostensibly a demand that "We need to talk" was about everybody listening without critical commentary, as always; or, as Chemi Shalev put it "The show must go on."
"Thus," he wrote, "the organizers of the GA failed to represent their own constituencies."
Again.
Rwexler
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Forget Sandler and Bibi.
HAIRGATE:Your dollars at work!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155850394957039&id=642877038&ref=content_filter#!/photo.php?fbid=10155850394037039&id=642877038&set=a.319350097038&source=57&refid=52&ref=content_filter&_ft_=mf_story_key.10155850394957039%3Atop_level_post_id.10155850394957039%3Atl_objid.10155850394957039%3Acontent_owner_id_new.642877038%3Athrowback_story_fbid.10155850394957039%3Aphoto_id.10155850394037039%3Astory_location.4%3Astory_attachment_style.photo%3Athid.642877038&__tn__=EH-R
First positive Comment onthe mess that was this GA. Fromthe folks who brought you TribeFest and #ish.
Forget for a moment the blatant misrepresentation of a crowd of 3,000 registered, the real shame of this GA was that other than a couple of good group discussions in the Den, the sessions were the same format as 30 years ago: Frontal presentations, followed by some Q & A for the last 15 minutes, and then rushing off to the next sessions.
The theme Can we Talk was a joke.
But more importantly, the entirety of the GA took place in the Tel Aviv convention center, inside the entire time, unless you went on the roof.
It might as well have been held in DC or LA.
What a shame that we were in Israel and didn't take advantage of being there, other than the Koolulam sing-fest on Monday night.
Richard, you of all people knows that the leaders of JFNA, all of whom must bear responsiibility for this rightfully vilified waste of a GA, they are all beyond humiliation. Believe that Richard Sandler actually thinks, as he expressed it while preparing to once again genuflect in front of the Prime Minister, that teh GA constituted "three fantastic days." His leadership lived in a virtual world of good. That's what happens when you accomplish nothing for three wasted years.
Post a Comment