So far, we have failed to guide the Federation into political inclusion

Over the past few years I have worried about the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s occasional but damaging engagement in partisan activities (I use “partisan” loosely and not to suggest that the Federation is in danger of losing its tax exempt status). This political action has increased divisions in our community and undermined the effectiveness of the Federation. Since this problematic work has been carried out by the Federation’s public affairs arm, the Jewish Community Relations Council, or JCRC —and years ago I was a member of the JCRC — I rejoined the JCRC in December 2019 to try to help the Federation become a bigger tent for the broader community, for all of us. Shortly thereafter, a few other members of our community also volunteered their time to serve on the JCRC with, I believe, similar goals. I would like to update our community on this effort.

The JCRC for many years (maybe from its inception) has been a consensus organization. Recently, its membership has been almost exclusively liberal politically. Still, due to its consensus approach, the recent addition of the newest members, who are conservative politically, could add the balance necessary on a board with 15 -20 active members so that the JCRC decisions would begin to reflect the consensus of the broader community. Unfortunately, some of the longstanding members viewed us newer members as an “insurrection” that needed to be suppressed. I will spare this audience the details of the JCRC restructure that followed. The principal change that prompted my resignation was the JCRC on Jan. 11 ending decision making by consensus. The JCRC was content to maintain a consensus approach when almost all of its members were politically liberal, but adding a politically conservative 20–30 percent minority then motivated them to adopt a charter that provides for decision by 2/3rds vote.

This new charter states, “… the JCRC endeavors to speak and act on behalf of the Jewish community it represents on community relations issues.” How will they speak for or represent our community without consensus? And especially given recent events and the increasing threats to our community, it is even more important for us to learn how to better work together and unify our community.

After a particularly discouraging episode with the JCRC in June of last year, I wrote an email to the JCRC members titled, “Why I Joined the JCRC.” In that email, I said that I might share those thoughts more widely in our community. Hence, this article.

Our Jewish community is of course still predominantly liberal, but, while not long ago we were almost monolithically liberal, today we have a sizable and growing minority that is politically conservative on many issues. By my estimate, we are currently two-thirds liberal and one-third conservative, or something like that. But in these challenging and increasingly dangerous times, our community needs an organization that can represent all of us, and I believe that organization should be the Federation. In my opinion, this is realistic, because we can all separate the Federation from our politics and engage in political activity outside of the Federation, if we so choose, through a wide variety of other Jewish or non-sectarian political and advocacy groups. I, for instance, belong to the Republican Jewish Coalition.

Here are some examples of Federation partisanship that concern me:

1. The Federation has failed to criticize Democratic officials for anti-Semitism based on the same standards that it has applied to a Republican official. Fighting anti-Semitism should be a priority, and our effectiveness is undermined if we are politically biased in this effort.

2. A Federation employee wrote one article in the Orlando Sentinel that pressured the DeSantis gubernatorial campaign and a second that called for the abolition of the electoral college. In these articles he identified himself as a Federation community relations executive. I understand that this employee was encouraged by the Federation to write articles in this manner, so this was our mistake, not the employee’s. Incidentally, this employee did a lot of good work for Jewish causes.

3. The Federation supported ballot Amendment 4 regarding voting rights for felons. Probably a large majority of our community voted for this amendment, but it is still politically divisive and a battle better fought outside the Federation.

This political engagement alienates a significant part of our community and results in diminished support for the Federation. It also damages the Federation’s ability to work with both political parties. This problem is especially acute if the political party that we have alienated has been successful at the state or local level. After all, elected officials are in a position to play a key role in helping our community achieve its goals.

We all need the Federation to address anti-Semitism and promote the U.S. — Israel relationship locally and to build bridges between the Jewish community and the broader community (although we will not agree with the broader community on every issue). The Federation also engages in social action and tikkun olam, but here it is important that it do so on the basis of consensus. On some social action issues, we can reach consensus; on others, we will passionately disagree (and so will our rabbis). In my opinion, for those social action issues that don’t have this broad consensus, the Federation should stay out of the fray. We should all fight for those issues through other organizations. If the Federation can disengage from those partisan issues, we will all have still quite a lot to work on and accomplish together.

Some of the other new members are continuing their work, and I wish them success. While my particular effort failed, I hope that we will ultimately succeed, and that is why I am writing this article. I believe that this question should be openly discussed in our community. I have included at bottom my attempt at defining “consensus,” which was rejected by the JCRC.

Definition of “Consensus” (not adopted) 

Consensus requires more than a simple majority and less than unanimity. Rather than focusing on particular percentages, it may be useful to think of consensus in the context of the goals of the Federation and the JCRC.

We urge every member of the JCRC to always consider whether a particular action will tend to unite or divide our community, and, if it will tend to divide, whether the action is of critical importance to the mission of the JCRC. If a member believes that a particular action will tend to divide but is of critical importance to our mission because it is mandated by Jewish values, the member should consider whether rabbis are in consensus on that question of Jewish values, taking into account views of all community denominations.