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Jewish World Review May 15, 2008 / 10 Iyar 5768 Finding a Reason to Do Nothing By Jonathan Tobin
True to form, activists and the establishment march in opposite directions on China
But when it comes to politics, there are some issues that function more
or less the way the Rorschach is supposed to. Like the ink blots, some
topics produce a reaction that speaks volumes about who we are as
individuals or as groups and how we see our place in the world.
That's the best way to understand the controversy that erupted over
whether or not Jews are supposed to care about China's human-rights
policy.
On April 30, a group of 185 rabbis and other leaders issued a statement
calling on individual Jews to refrain from attending the Beijing
Olympics to protest "China's policies regarding Tibet and Darfur, and
its assistance to Iran, Syria and Hamas." The statement made specific
reference to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which were used by the Nazi
regime to polish their image.
This "Yom Hashoah Declaration" was spearheaded by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg,
the former chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and Rabbi
Haskel Lookstein, a New York City educator and author, and was assisted
by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
THE KOSHER KITCHEN
What was most interesting about the wording of the text was the fact
that it noted that Beijing's authorization of a "kosher kitchen" [operated by a Chabad missionary] at the
Olympics village was a ploy to "attract Jewish tourists to the games as
part of its broader strategy of improving its image and deflecting
attention from its complicity in severe human rights abuses at home and
abroad."
Beijing's belief that the Olympics was going to help its image was a
serious mistake. The attention given to the games and the Olympic Torch
run (a bit of baloney that was actually invented by the Nazis in 1936)
has, in fact, afforded its critics the opportunity to highlight issues
that the Communist regime wanted to sweep under the rug.
But rather than generating more support for a potential boycott or
pressure on China, the rabbis' statement had the opposite effect.
Within 24 hours, much of the Jewish establishment was falling over
itself to dissociate themselves from the statement. The Anti-Defamation
League was joined by others, including the American Jewish Committee,
in denouncing the boycott. They dismissed the initiative, and were
particularly unhappy about the analogies to 1936 and the Holocaust.
Their position was that any such reference was, by definition, unkosher.
What was particularly remarkable was the speed and the vehemence of the
counterattack by the anti-boycotters. For the organized Jewish world to
respond so quickly and definitively to an activist project of any kind
is a feat in itself.
Was it to protect the memory of the Holocaust from trivialization?
Hardly. No one who wants to do something about China's outrages in
Tibet and elsewhere says that it is Nazi Germany whose crimes were
unique. But have we now painted ourself into a rhetorical corner where
anything less than Auschwitz is unworthy of protest?
To dismiss the clear human-rights imperative of protest by merely
saying that "China is a complicated society," as the ADL did, is no
argument. It is an obfuscation. It is true that China
is far less tyrannical today than it was under Mao. But what sort of
standard is that?
Are events in Tibet, Darfur and China's use of its growing power to
back Iran, Syria and Hamas none of our business, as these establishment
groups seem to be saying?
Back in the early 1990s, when activists sought to make the massacres in
Bosnia a matter of Jewish concern, few voices were raised then to quash
the push for action. At that time, some of the same arguments about a
"complicated" situation could have been used to argue against the
attempt to stop Serbian and Croatian depredations against people who
had little in common with most American Jews.
What's different today?
For one thing, China is a lot more powerful than Serbia. In that case,
many prominent Jewish business leaders and some organizations (who
receive donations from these business people) did not see their
interests jeopardized by the application of human-rights principles to
policy as they do with China.
Groups could afford the luxury of conscience on Bosnia. That's not the
case with China.
Given the vast entanglement of our economy with theirs, a stand on this
issue requires a degree of courage that the calls for boycotts of the
Serbs or, more recently, of Sudan did not.
Indeed, there are some, including those that we don't normally think of
as being motivated by international trade, that see China as a vast
market rather than as the world's largest human-rights violator.
The Orthodox Union, whose helpful O.U. symbol is the gold standard of
kosher standards also denounced the boycott. But unlike others that merely
issued terse statements and then clammed up, the O.U. followed up by
distributing a long statement from a "marketing associate" who waxed
lyrical about the joys of selling kosher food in China.
The O.U. has a long and honorable history of service to the Jewish
people.
But it's clear that it now falls under the rubric of what columnist
George Will once called capitalists "who love commerce more than they
loathe communism."
What good can a boycott do? Perhaps not much. Even if the few who are
wealthy enough to think about a two-week vacation in China don't go,
Tibet won't be free. But since when have Jews regarded human rights as
merely a matter of expediency? If Jewish opinion weren't that
important, then Beijing wouldn't bother with that kosher kitchen.
JEWS WITH CHUTZPAH
Tibet and Darfur are not the Holocaust, and Chinese leader Hu Jintao
isn't Hitler. But its deplorable human-rights record and the effort to
whitewash it is not a matter of dispute except for those who have a
financial or political motivation for doing so.
As in the past, activists and establishment types will look at an issue
and see their own agendas reflected. Those who want an excuse to do
nothing and let business as usual proceed can always find one.
What a pity that this rule still applies to so much of the Jewish world.
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JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2007, Jonathan Tobin
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