J Street gets jobbed

Boo on the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and their vote yesterday to exclude J Street. I have particular disdain for Farley I. Weiss, the president of the National Council of Young Israel, who allowed himself to be quoted by the New York Times, as follows:

"We’re very pleased and relieved, because J Street’s positions were not within the mainstream of the Jewish community,” said Farley I. Weiss, the president of the National Council of Young Israel, which is an association of Orthodox synagogues. “On virtually every single issue, their position is contrary to that of anything that would be considered pro-Israel, and they don’t represent the rank and file of the Jewish community in America.”

Farley is wrong about everything here. More importantly, he sets an absurd criteria for membership in the Conference. The National Council of Young Israel, his own dying little society of middle-aged modern orthodox Zionists, hardly "represent the rank and file of the Jewish community in America." and their positions on women in leadership roles, among countless others, are "not within the mainstream of the Jewish community." (After all the "mainstream Jewish community" includes heterodox groups and NCYI, infamously ,tossed out a member synagogue for the heresy of electing a female president.)

Wouldn't Farley agree this state of affairs disqualifies his organization from membership in the Conference? Or is Farley in the grips of the old, stupid Modern Orthodox / Conservadox fantasy that having a jingoistic, hard right view on Israel is mechaper kol avonos?

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