An Open Letter to Reform Jewish Leaders on Donald Trump, AIPAC and Rabbi Hillel

March 20, 2016

10 Adar II 5776

To Our Rabbis:

We write with heavy hearts regarding your statement on AIPAC’s decision to include Donald Trump in its Policy Conference. While we appreciate the legal necessity of remaining candidate neutral, and recognize that the decision itself is AIPAC’s, we nonetheless believe the movement has missed an opportunity to more strongly stand against ignorance and fear-mongering. You have taught us to consider repairing the world and retaining the memory of our subjugation as paramount to our Jewish identity. It is in this light that we are devastated to learn our teachers “respect completely” the further legitimization of a candidacy that is authoritarian, racist, and possessing fascist undertones.

Any justification of this invitation demonstrates a disregard for the foundational ethical obligation we strive to live by. All our lives, you taught us that powerful people must leverage their power for the protection of the vulnerable. You taught us that evil flourishes when people of conscience are timid in the face of ideologies of blame, supremacy and violence. We are proud to say we were listening.

Mr. Trump is, as you say, “not simply another candidate.” We agree that his policies “are anathema to our fundamental values” and that his candidacy “demands a new approach.” So we are confused by what seems to be URJ business as usual. We share your position that one must engage with ideological opponents. But as you’ve well recognized, one does not disagree with Mr. Trump the way one might disagree with others over nuances of policy or the preferred means to a common end. To offer Mr. Trump a seat at the table is to acknowledge that his brand of childish, dangerous, and hateful leadership is within the realm of acceptable behavior — and it most surely is not.

In this critical time, we ask you to reconsider your support of AIPAC’s decision to invite Mr. Trump and instead to join your colleagues in the Reconstructionist movement and engage in the great Jewish tradition of arguing the hardest with those you love the most. We urge you to inform AIPAC in writing that the URJ will neither tolerate purveyors of hate speech, nor seek policy details from those who praise ethnic detention regimes and aspire to the rejection of refugees on the basis of religious affiliation. This is a critical opportunity to institutionally reject all that Mr. Trump’s campaign stands for.

We also seek clarity on your intentions and actions at the Policy Conference. Will you walk out when Mr. Trump takes the stage? Turn your backs in protest? Hold up signs? These choices are ultimately yours but we are most concerned that you do not “engage with Mr. Trump” in any substantive way. As those who were raised and nurtured in the Reform movement, and taught repeatedly that you cannot “retrieve the wind-strewn feathers” of evil speech, we are asking you to seize this moment and make it known without question that Reform Jews will not give Mr. Trump the dignity of political recognition. We acknowledge we are asking for something unprecedented, extreme and with an uncertain outcome. That is because we are facing extreme and uncertain times. In your statement, you rightly invoked the wisdom of Rabbi Hillel’s entreaty to “do unto others.” We respectfully suggest dwelling instead on Hillel’s question: if not now, when?

Yours,

(list in formation)

Eli Szenes-Strauss

Lisa Goldstein Firnberg

Jonathan Torn

Kim Ash

Judy Sennesh

Benjamin Feinberg-Gerner

Nina Shiffrin

Amy Sennesh Vastola

Michele Burger

Erica Rosen

Sharon Green

Rabbi Debra Goldstein

Laura Becker

Aly Gerber

Annie Sklaver Orenstein

Marla Feinstein

Josh Schaier

Lane Levine

Joseph Brooks

Rabbi Daniel Klein

Judi Dichter

George Shapiro

Lynne Kirschhoffer

Betsy Eichel

Murray L. Levin, MD

Nan A. Canter

Doreen Davidowitz

Neil Davidowitz

Carol Scharff

Beth Sennesh

Joseph Alexiou

Matthew Baer

Leila Macbeth

Vivian Stein

Ava Morgenstern

Please email [email protected] if you wish to sign this letter.