According to an official at the conference, the American Jewish community's main pro-Israel umbrella organization, Meretz USA did not meet the definition of a "major" Jewish organization. But officials from the left-wing Meretz USA have alleged that the decision was motivated by political bias. "We were slighted for four-and-a-half years, given the run-around and ultimately, the membership committee gave a ruling based on non-specific criteria," said Charney Bromberg, executive director of Meretz USA. Bromberg argued that voting members opposed to the group's political positions placed undue focus on its small budget and membership, all but ignoring its overall impact on the community.
According to their website, Meretz USA is a "progressive Zionist organization that educates Americans about issues of civil rights and peace in Israel, and promotes the values of peace, pluralism and democracy in Israel, as envisioned by prophetic Judaism and the Zionist pioneers and as enshrined in Israel's Declaration of Independence."
The President Conference criteria state that, in order to qualify as a member, a group must be "an incorporated major national American Jewish organization in continuous operation for at least five years," have a paid executive director and professional staff and have democratically elected officers and board members. Member groups must also be able to meet annual conference dues requirements and maintain "a significant focus of programmatic and policy activities" on issues of concern to the Presidents Conference, including "strengthening the America-Israel relationship" and "protecting and enhancing the security and dignity of Jews abroad."
A seat on the conference means membership in the representative body of American Jewry, which takes policy positions on major issues of Jewish concern and advocates for those issues in Washington and abroad.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (the Reform movement), told JTA that “Meretz, in comparison to many other members of the conference, absolutely has a right to be represented there." However, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said that Meretz “is so tiny, with only a couple of employees, that it would really make a mockery of the claim that this is a conference of major organizations.”
At the same time Meretz USA got the bum rush, the conference denied adjunct membership to the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association.
As much as I have scoffed at the sniping of Tikkun against the "right-wing bias" of the Conference, I'm suspicious of this latest incident. The Conference needs to formalize and dictate its internal policies, pronto.
Since Forward editorials do not remain on their website, I reprint below their take on the Conference controversy:
Once again, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has given in to what looks suspiciously like political bias by turning down the membership applications of two organizations that deserve to be accepted.
The rejected organizations, Meretz USA and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, were nominally rejected on a variety of grounds, mainly revolving around the argument that they are too small to be considered "major" organizations. But their real failing seems to be excessive liberalism.
One of the newcomers, Meretz USA, had been recommended for rejection by the conference's membership committee after a review and appeals process that has dragged on for nearly five years. The committee said the group fails to meet a murky set of standards for "major" status, including some combination of membership, budget, national reach and public impact. Admittedly, Meretz USA is not a mass movement. But, as the group has argued repeatedly, neither are some of the other groups already sheltered under the conference's umbrella. Moreover, it is the American affiliate of a major Israeli political party; as such it represents a major Jewish viewpoint. Its rejection dishonors the Presidents Conference more than it dishonors Meretz.
As for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, its application — for associate or non-voting membership — had actually been recommended for approval by the membership committee. In being rejected by the full conference, it appears to have been caught up in the anti-liberal wave aimed at Meretz.
The suggestion that the Presidents Conference genuinely limits its membership to major groups might have stood up to scrutiny two or three decades ago, when it consisted of organizations that could claim either mass membership or a powerful grip on the national imagination. Those days are long gone, however. Today, thanks to loose admissions procedures in the first decades after 1967, the conference has ballooned into an ungainly collection of dozens of groups both large and small, major and minor, powerful and laughable. What they share is a political cast, especially on Israel-related matters, that puts the conference as a whole decidedly to the right of the larger community it claims to represent.
We've long taken the position that the Presidents Conference plays a legitimate and essential role in giving voice to American Jewry's solidarity with the Jewish state. If there weren't a conference, it would have to be invented. As now configured, though, this body is sorely in need of reinventing. Some clear rules, transparent governing structures and perhaps a sweeping membership review are in order. That should be at the top of the agenda of the next chairman.
Watch this space. Clashes within the community over who represents Jews and what do Jews stand for will only get more intense.
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