Shelley Berkley Sounds the Alarm on Antisemitism Across the Political
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MAY 14 2021 ♦ 3 SIVAN, 5781 THE WEEKLY PRINT Shelley Berkley sounds the alarm on antisemitism across the political spectrum; Michael Oren dives back into the 1970s; This NY congressman says Democratic socialism and support for Israel don’t contradict; What explains Tom Carper’s recent approach on Israel?; and Seth Siegel’s next chapter MAY 7, 2021 Shelley Berkley sounds the alarm on antisemitism across the political spectrum The former Nevada representative said the right ‘are as antisemitic as the Nazis’ and some left-wing Democrats ‘are just as hateful and antisemitic as the right’ By Marc Rod ep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) and Sanctions movement that targets Israel. left the House for an unsuccessful bid for left politics nearly a decade Candidates aligned with the Democratic Senate, later joining Touro. R ago. In that time, she has seen Socialists of America, which supports BDS, Berkley said that right-wing antisemitism increasingly consume recently won control of the Democratic antisemitism “once was a fringe” but is elements of the political right — and Party apparatus in Berkley’s home state. “becoming far more mainstream on the is concerned that the same thing As co-chair of the JFNA committee that right,” pointing to incidents like the January could happen in her own party. In her leads the federations’ advocacy, education 6 Capitol riot and the 2017 Unite the Right new role as the co-chair of the Jewish and training efforts fighting antisemitism rally in Charlottesville, Va. Federations of North America’s security and securing Jewish institutions, Berkley “Now, members of the Republican [Party and antisemitism committee, she wants is attuned to the growing threats facing the in] Congress do not want to investigate that to address the issue head-on. community. insurrection. The only conclusion is that “If you look at the right, they are as Berkley said she plans to actively they agree with it,” Berkley said, “or they antisemitic as the Nazis,” Berkley, who oppose legislation like a recent bill from would be far more anxious to get to the represented Nevada’s first congressional Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) that would bottom of how that happened and ensure it district from 1999 to 2013, remarked in an place restrictions on U.S. aid and any BDS never happens again.” interview with Jewish Insider on Thursday. initiatives, as well as to support the National Berkley also reflected on the legacy of “When you look to the left, there are Security Grant Program and bills promoting another major figure in Nevada and pro- Democrats on the far left that are just as Holocaust education. Israel politics, Republican megadonor hateful and antisemitic as on the right.” “These issues are very important to Sheldon Adelson, who died earlier this year. “It upsets and angers me that there is me,” Berkley said, adding that she sees her Berkley and Adelson had a long and a segment of the Democratic Party that is new position with JFNA as a complement complicated relationship — she was a high- not only anti-Israel, but from their rhetoric to her job as the chief executive officer and ranking lawyer for the casino mogul in the there is no other conclusion than they are senior provost of Touro University’s Western ‘90s, but the two split over a union dispute, antisemitic,” she said. “It worries me on the Division. and Adelson ultimately dedicated significant left that mainstream Democrats are not As a legislator, Berkley was actively resources to her political opponents. A 2012 taking a stand against the antisemitic, pro- involved in Jewish community issues and Politico article during Berkley’s Senate run BDS rhetoric coming out of the left,” she was known as one of the most prominent described the two as “mortal foes.” said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment pro-Israel members of Congress. Berkley “One must give credit where credit is 1 due. Some of the issues that came to the step forward,” which she hopes is expanded the U.S.’s close alliance with Israel and create forefront under the Trump administration further. opportunities for Middle East peace. — moving the embassy to Jerusalem, which “Imagine that region in the world if there “President Biden has been in public I have always supported, and initiating was cooperation… Everyone will be better office at the forefront of foreign affairs for the Abraham Accords — I suspect came off for it,” Berkley said. “It makes absolutely his entire career and almost his entire life… from Sheldon,” Berkley said. “Sheldon and no sense to continue these petty hatreds He has assembled a great foreign policy Trump were very close allies. And I know and refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist. team,” she said. “As our most reliable ally that Sheldon had Trump’s ear. So I applaud I don’t want to shock anybody in the Arab and the only democracy in the Middle East, those initiatives.” world, but Israel exists and it’s flourishing.” it is essential that Israel remain strong. And Berkley praised the Abraham Accords, The former congresswoman said she has while they are certainly self-sustaining, it is which normalized relations between Israel confidence that President Joe Biden and his the most important alliance in the world, the and several Arab states, as “a miraculous foreign policy team will continue to support American-Israeli relationship.” ♦ MAY 11, 2021 Michael Oren dives back into the 1970s The former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. has a new novel, ‘To All Who Call in Truth,’ set in the decade of his childhood By Amy Spiro or Michael Oren, the 1970s in “I grew up in a non-Jewish working-class remarkable line.” America represent a lost era. neighborhood. I encountered antisemitism The novel features cameo appearances F “The 1970s was the last moment pretty much regularly. It was a fact and from unnamed figures that directly when being Jewish in America was an feature of our lives.” echo some of the most dominant Jewish ethnicity,” the former Israeli ambassador His family came home one night to find personalities of the era: Elie Wiesel, Shlomo to the U.S. told Jewish Insider in a recent “dirty Jew” scrawled on their windows, Carlebach and Meir Kahane. interview. “We didn’t grow up thinking of and the synagogue he attended as a youth “For my generation, we had towering ourselves primarily or even secondarily as was blown up in 1971 in what remains an Jewish figures who everybody knew,” Oren white people — we were a separate ethnic unsolved mystery. recalled. “For better or for worse… but we group.” And while the book’s plot touches on don’t have these figures anymore. And I At the time, Oren asserts, “that ethnicity many elements that were a part of Oren’s knew them all.” had many expressions — of course, there’s a childhood, the novel, he said, is so much Their fleeting appearances are his way of religious expression, but it was our food, our more. “paying homage to them in this book. And I humor, our problems.” “The book is not just about the period didn’t want to use their real names because Oren himself grew up in West Orange, and not just about being Jewish,” he it’s not important for the book. It’s important N.J., in the 1970s, in what he describes as added. “It’s about a relationship, it’s about for what their influence is.” a “white-bread America.” The diplomat, obsession, it’s about betrayal, it’s about One scene also features the characters historian and author draws on his own violence. Ultimately I think it’s about hope.” in the novel meeting an unnamed Israeli experiences during that decade for his latest The book takes its title from a verse in ambassador to the U.S. — who would have novel, To All Who Call in Truth, which hits Psalms, which is repeated three times a day been Yitzhak Rabin at the time. That scene bookshelves today. in the traditional “Ashrei” prayer — and is echoes the real moment when a teenaged To All Who Call in Truth centers on emblazoned on the walls of the fictional Oren shook Rabin’s hand in 1970. Sandy Cooper, a junior high school guidance synagogue in Oren’s novel, as well as the real “If you read my book, Ally, it opens with counselor and football coach who finds one from his childhood: “The Lord is near to me shaking his hand,” Oren said. “And I was himself dragged into a twisted relationship all that call upon him, to all that call upon a starstruck 15-year-old kid.” and a mysterious murder case amid a him in truth.” Oren is better known for his nonfiction wave of racial and political turmoil in an “It’s a beautiful line,” Oren said. “It’s a works, including Ally: My Journey Across otherwise quiet town. fundamental article of faith: If you actually the American-Israeli Divide as well as Six “This is the world I grew up in,” Oren said. turn to God, God will be there. It’s a Days of War and Power, Faith and Fantasy. 2 But To All Who Call in Truth is far from his in Washington, Oren served in the Knesset barrages of rockets at Israel. “It also indicates first foray into fiction; in 2001, he published for four years, departing shortly before what the problematic effect of, everytime we’re Sand Devil, a series of novellas set in Israel’s became the first of four national elections going to have some kind of security issue Negev, in 2012 he released a novel, Reunion, in two years.