Poet Josh Healey: J Street's Van Jones? Photo by Natasha Mozgovaya of Haaretz

We all have a lot of hope for J Street as an Israel lobby that can counteract AIPAC and promote justice for the Palestinians, just as we all have a lot of hope for Obama as a president who can talk with “our enemies” and create a more caring and ecologically sane society at home. We forgive their efforts to capture the center by ditching any of their friends who appear troublesome, we forgive, we forgive, and we mourn because when you start throwing your friends overboard, you only let the opposition know you have little belief in your ship, and so your potential friends may not wish to board. It’s an old story that pundits keep pointing out, but the liberal left-of-center seems so shellshocked by thirty years of rightwing ascendancy that they just can’t act as if they were as strong as they are.

“So Van Jones resigned, but did the right wing stop attacking Obama?”

You know the answer to that. It didn’t, but Obama’s friends lost a little heart, a little confidence. The voice is that of Josh Healey, J Street’s equivalent to Van Jones. Healey is the poet they just removed from their conference line-up for pointing out some similarities between Guantanamo and Auschwitz. In an interview in Haaretz, Josh Healey explains this problem with centrists beautifully:

“On one level, I understand them – it’s easier to get rid of the poet, who cares? But as an artist and a Jewish activist, it’s a matter of principle. If you’re trying to be an alternative to AIPAC – don’t behave like AIPAC.”

“I told them I don’t think it’s the legitimacy they want, because it’s not the legitimacy that makes change. When you’re trying to make change, you must expect that some people will push back. But they kick out their allies – and I still consider myself an ally. I’m not personally offended – I’m politically disappointed. It’s ironic that we were invited to perform and be a part of the dialogue at the track ‘The culture as a tool for change.’ But we can’t even have this dialogue. The Jewish community acts like children, with smear campaigns and name-calling. I am not surprised by the right wing attacks — but that J-Street went along with it and accommodated it.”

Referring to the specific line which stirred the negative emotions, Healey said: “It was taken [out] of context. Judged by themselves, these lines don’t even make sense. Just before this line, I wrote: ‘I remember when the German soldiers put yellow stars on my family coats and they put pink ones on my friends.’ I was talking about de-humanization. And yes, I have family that was killed in the Holocaust. There were Jewish people killed and gay people and Gypsies, and many others, and as a Jew, my solidarity is with my people — and with all people. And my solidarity is with the people of Israel — but also with the people of Palestine. And I believe in two state solution and peace and justice for all people. And if J-Street are not willing to have debate with people who believe in solidarity and humanity, I don’t know what legitimacy they want, because it’s not a moral legitimacy.”

“I love my people, the Jewish people, and that’s why I’m critical – because it’s my people, my family that are silencing people the same way we were silenced and suppressed for centuries,” Healey concluded.

He may have had in mind also J Street’s exclusion of Tikkun from their first national conference. The wide range of other groups who have sponsored the conference can be seen by scrolling down on this page. J Street turned down requests by ourselves and others on our behalf for Tikkun to be included, even when Michael Lerner, fearing that they were anxious that he might say something overly radical, promised not to say anything to the press that they did not pre-approve. We assured J Street we would not send out an email against them and have not done so: why would we, we support a very similar platform to theirs! But so many of our friends wrote us asking why we were witholding our support from J Street that yesterday I wrote an email to our core supporters and subscribers explaining that we wished it were not so, that we still supported J Street fully, but the choice to exclude us was theirs.

I’m an outsider and newcomer to this struggle of the Jewish people to work out how to act now that a significant portion of their number wield state power. I feel for people on all the various sides of this barely possible task. I have immense respect for Michael Lerner’s bravery and ethical compass in insisting right from the start of Tikkun magazine (23 years ago) that his people must live up to their own highest ethical standards. When other powerless people gained power they faced the same questions. It is a human tale as old as the domination of some humans by others. The newly powerful rarely have time for the prophets who remind them of what it is like to be dispossessed, to lose one’s home and homeland, and who fiercely caution them to use their own power compassionately. From where I stand, my heart goes out to the prophets, especially when they are excluded.

Later: Don’t miss the next post in which Josh Healey speaks directly: his to us arrived unbenownst to me right as I was posting this.