Values hot topic of discussion at recent NJCRAC meeting
CYNTHIA MANN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Welfare cuts, campaign finance reform, the balanced budget amendment and federally funded school vouchers dominate the domestic Jewish public policy agenda these days. But when Jewish community activists from across the country gathered in Washington this week, some of the most stirring discussion focused on other matters.
Delegates to the annual conference of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council passionately debated American Jewry's role in Israeli policy matters, from the peace process to religious pluralism. Delegates adopted a resolution in support of the peace process, but only after deleting a call on the Israeli government to show "maximum restraint" on the issue of Jewish settlements.
At the same time, they celebrated a new marriage throughout the community relations field of social activism to Jewish values and tradition. The mantra of the movement appears to be "Torah and tzedek," Hebrew for "justice."
For the first time at a NJCRAC plenary conference, delegates crowded into a late night Beit Midrash, or study session, which explored how Jewish texts on helping the poor inform the current debate on welfare reform.
Nancy Kaufman, executive director of Boston's Jewish Community Relations Council, and a pioneer of "Torah and tzedek," said that "for a long time there was a nervousness" about this in the field. Now, she said, "slowly but surely, there is a recognition and acceptance and embracing of the inextricable link between the justice part of our agenda and the Jewish part."
About 400 delegates attended the convention of NJCRAC, an umbrella body serving 117 local Jewish community relations councils and 13 national agencies. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Phoenix did not send a delegation to this year's conference.
|
