U.S. Jewish group's stand on pullout attacked

The annual Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO) opened in Jerusalem yesterday amid criticism by the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, as well as other American Jewish officials and conference members, over the group's position regarding the disengagement plan.

Yoffie said the conference is irrelevant, and is not representing the majority of American Jews as long as it refrains from expressing unequivocal support for the pullout.

Following the Knesset's approval of the disengagement plan in October, the conference issued a reserved statement of support for the decision. Its leaders, president James Tisch and executive vice chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, commended the Knesset for the vote, but cautioned that other votes are expected until the plan's final approval.

The director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, described the conference's decision as "lukewarm and feeble," noting it was much more reserved than the declarations of the U.S. president and Congress.

A few weeks earlier, Foxman failed to pass a resolution proposal in the Presidents' Conference expressing support for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his plan. After a number of right-wing and Orthodox organizations came out against the initiative, Tisch and Hoenlein asked Foxman to withdraw the proposal, claiming there was "no consensus" for its adoption.

The CPMAJO, comprising 52 national Jewish organizations, adopts resolutions by consensus, that is, unanimously or with an absolute majority of members. In the past, the organization has been criticized for granting equal representation to all organizations regardless of their size.

Yoffie told Haaretz last week that the conference's stand on the disengagement issue is "a shameful disgrace." He said that given its present positions, the conference is an "irrelevant organization" that does not represent the consensus in the Jewish American community.

"There is no doubt that all the major American Jewish organizations support the disengagement," he said. "The Presidents' Conference has a few organizations that represent perhaps 15 percent of the Jewish population in America, and for that they tell us there is no consensus. There is a consensus, and the conference does not represent it. It's simply a shameful disgrace that at such a critical moment for the State of Israel, the Presidents' Conference should refrain from taking a stand."

The Union for Reform Judaism, a member of the CPMAJO, is America's largest religious movement - 30 percent of American Jews who regularly attend synagogue do so in one of 900 Reform synagogues.

In the past, Yoffie has not hesitated from lashing out at the leaders of the conference for taking political stands that he believed were too right wing, without consulting the rest of the conference's representatives.

In an article published last week in the New York Jewish newspaper Forward, Yoffie called on the large Jewish organizations to ignore the Presidents' Conference and cooperate with each other. "Under the circumstances, if tomorrow the settlers were to call for open rebellion against Israel's government, the Presidents' Conference could not be counted on to condemn such sentiments," he wrote.

Foxman told Haaretz yesterday that he shares the criticism about the lack of transparency with which the conference is conducted. He said it does not provide member organizations with proper reports or adequate representation to the large organizations.

However, Foxman said he believes the organizations' members should act to change it from the inside rather than look for ways to bypass it or find substitutes.

Hoenlein sharply attacked Yoffie, whom he said is irrelevant as far as he was concerned. "It is just one person who seems to find this is his only way of getting attention and who makes a career out of writing these articles, so I'm not interested in discussing it. Abe Foxman tried to circulate a petition himself, but he could not get anybody to support it, because people felt it was a question of timing and not of substance. Once the Knesset voted, we issued a very strong and clear statement," he said.

He added that "when we support the disengagement, the Israeli media does not publish it."