Aaron Dorfman
“At a time when American democracy faces real threats, many mainstream Jewish leaders are struggling to find public footing. Some leaders have spoken out, and some institutions and denominations have joined together on statements condemning violence, cruelty, and impunity in immigration enforcement, for example.
But on this issue, and on several others that have arisen in recent years — aggressive gerrymandering, threats to voting rights, the dismantling of the federal bureaucracy, retributive investigations against political enemies, and the erosion of democratic norms — most Jewish establishment organizations have remained silent.
This unevenness is striking, given the Jewish people’s historical allergy to authoritarianism and how essential healthy democracy has been to the success and thriving of the American Jewish community. So what’s going on?
Several factors have converged to produce this hesitation…”
