Tuesday, June 27, 2006
You think you're safe...attending a grass-roots community organizing event...sure it's organized by a Jewish group, but from the looks of it, you'd expect to be ensconced in a left-of-center designated safe-zone. Not so fast. Mr. Goat has a very interesting report: Mostly-white group disrupts community organizing event...for Palestine?
After that, Ron Bell got up to speak. Bell has a long history as a community organizer in Boston, most prominently as the founder of Dunk the Vote. Formed in the wake of the Charles Stuart episode, when the rights of so many African-American men were systematically smashed, Bell used Dunk the Vote to build community power through voter registration in the Black community, registering some 35,000 people. As Bell spoke, a man walked in, made his way through the crowd, and stepped in front of the speaker with a big sign revealing the reason for the protest that evening, urging that next time, the organizers don’t invite the JCRC.
The JCRC, you see, is the Jewish Community Relations Council, and they were one of the 18 or so organizations represented at the event. They do a lot of organizing in synagogues, largely through the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. Another wing of their organization focuses on Israel and Palestine, and many in the Jewish community and beyond find their positions pretty conservative. [There are a lot of people inside and outside JCRC who would get a grin at that description.-S] There has been much discussion, wrestling, protest, etc. over these positions throughout the years...
Oh, do be sure to read the whole thing. There's another description here: "Free Palestine" neo-Nazis, or: African Americans and Jews have a LOT in common. I can't say, of course, but I am skeptical that the "disruptors" were the brownshirt types the author of that one thinks. Check it out, though. And finally (for now), there's this one: Mostly White Group Shouts down Ron Bell at Cambridge Community Organizing Event
Too bad nobody has any pictures. I bet there would be a lot of familiar faces.
[h/t: AdamG]
Update 6/30/06: I have had it confirmed by someone who was there that Andover High School physics teacher Ron Francis was indeed among the disruptive protesters at this event. Whether he was one of those who actually entered the hall and had to be escorted out by police is unclear. The story in the latest issue of The Jewish Advocate newspaper about the event itself describes the protesters simply as "a familiar group."
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: 'Pro-Palestinian' group disrupts community organizing event over presence of Jewish group.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.solomonia.com/cgi-bin/mt4/mt-renamedtb.cgi/6458
Nearly choked when I came across that comment on Mr. Goat's blog about the JCRC being conservative. WTF?
I guess it makes some sense if you're coming at it from a perspective of good dhimmis like Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and all those Yidden who held up "Another Jew for Divestment" signs at the Somerville Aldermen's meetings last year. There's a certain logic to it if, like a good liberal, you're in favor of appeasement and total capitulation to terror, if you don't recognize the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have been fighting a war against Israel, and that they're quite serious about destroying it.
However, back here on planet Earth, that characterization would be funny if the JCRC's fecklessness weren't such a problem.
What you describe is definitely how we usually view it when discussing this issue. In this case I think the comment is made mostly out of innocence, though. Just want to be clear I'm not looking to argue with these bloggers I've linked to. I'm just interested in what happened.