Posted By James Besser
Political Insider: Provocative Weekend Reading / James Besser in Washington
Most Jewish groups have remained silent about the recent House resolution - passed by an overwhelming margin - praising and defending Christmas and making it clear that Christianity is, if not the official religion of the nation at least the dominant one.
Not Sally Quinn, the longtime Washington Post writer. In Sunday's Post Quinn offers an angry critique of the resolution and what it signals about our representatives in Washington.
"This resolution was as anti-American as anything Congress has ever passed," Quinn writes. "It disenfranchised and marginalized millions and millions of men and women, reducing them to second-class citizens."
Quinn also describes the agonies of an unnamed Jewish House member who voted for the resolution - out of fear, not conviction. Most Jewish House members voted yes; only Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) rejected it.
Read Quinn's article here.
Read the full text of the resolution here.
Just as provocative is Eric Alterman's piece in the current issue of The Nation.
Alterman looks at the recent American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish public opinion and asks this question: why do still-liberal Jews tolerate as communal spokespeople mostly conservative leaders whose values and views are radically different from the Jewish majority?
Alterman calls it an "unholy alliance between conservative-dominated professional Jewish organizations and neoconservative Jewish pundits, aided by pliant and frequently clueless mainstream media that empower these right-wingers to speak for a people with values diametrically opposed to theirs."
He has an answer: apathy.
Most Jews don't belong to Jewish organizations, don't pay attention to what they say and don't care much about what they do, he suggested, giving conservative big givers a chance to dominate the communal agenda.
So far, only one Jewish group has responded to The Nation blast: the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which distributed the column without comment - apparently to tout its inclusion as one of the "most influential Jewish organizations."