SPECIAL COMMENTARY
A Jewish Agenda Under A Narrow Government
SPECIAL
COMMENTARY
JERUSALEM
Family Focus
Washington, D. C.
Many candidates pledged in recent
s the dust settles on the
weeks to "fight for America's families"
2000 political battleground,
and will be looking for ways to realize
a few realities are clear. The
that commitment. As a family-orient-
new president [whoever he
ed community, the American Jewish
is] faces a closely divided Congress
community should play a part in
with the Republicans barely in control
shaping a bipartisan family-friendly
and cannot claim a mandate for the
agenda. The contours of
bolder aspects of his agenda.
such an agenda should
The narrow margin of victory
include the following
and apportionment of con-
aspects.
gressional power ensures that
First, the elimination of
the only measures that will be
the tax code's marriage
enacted legislatively, will be
penalty. While Republicans
those that garner centrist,
and Democrats split last
bipartisan support.
year over how exactly to
With this reality, the
remedy this inequity —
American Jewish community's
one that costs 25 million
agenda for the 107th Con-
NATHAN J.
couples an average of
gress must be carefully con-
D IANI ENT
$1,500 extra in taxes based
sidered and expertly executed
Special to
solely on their marital sta-
if it is to be translated from
the Jewish News
tus — they agreed on the
rhetoric to reality. A Jewish
need to eliminate it and
agenda that relies solely on
ensure that our tax code
the alliance with one party is
does not penalize couples for electing
doomed to fail. So let us consider
to marry.
what a bipartisan American Jewish
A second important component
agenda might look like.
of a pro-family agenda is an
Thankfully, support for a strong
increased commitment to childcare.
and secure Israel has enjoyed biparti-
A bipartisan approach to this issue
san support for decades. This could be
will ensure that both dual career
no more critical than right now, as
couples, as well as couples with one
Israel faces the most hostile Arab and
stay-at-home parent, will receive
international community that it has in
greater support through tax credits
years_ The crisis of the past weeks has
and subsidized programs for the
already garnered overwhelmingly
childcare decisions they make. Polls
bipartisan resolutions in support of
in recent years consistently show
Israel's security; we must continue to
that a majority of women would opt
work with Republicans and Democ-
to stay home to raise young children
rats to ensure this critical support con-
if they could afford to do so. At the
tinues for the sake of the Jewish state.
same time, parents who use child-
On the domestic front, a bipartisan
care centers outside the home seek
Jewish agenda might begin with a —
assurances that they entrust their
measure that has languished in recent
children to safe and responsible
years — the Workplace Religious Free-
providers. The Jewish community
dom Act. This measure will prod pri-
should play a critical role in promot-
vate sector employers to accommodate
ing initiatives consistent with these
the religious needs of their employees
needs.
— such as time off for religious holi-
Finally, as the firestorm over the
days and the wearing of religious garb
recent Federal Trade Commission
— to the benefit of all religious Amer-
report revealed, many parents feel
icans. It has been endorsed by am
that they are engaged in a hopeless
array of religious organizations and
struggle to raise "PG kids in an R-
has enjoyed bipartisan sponsorship in
rated world." The FTC found that
both houses of Congress. The atten-
Hollywood studios were intentional-
tion and effort of religious activists
ly marketing age-inappropriate
was diverted from this measure in
movies to pre-teens and the same is
recent years by securing the passage of
thought to be the case with regard to
the Religious Land Use legislation last
record and video game companies.
year. Now it is time to roll up our
Senate hearings demonstrated bipar-
sleeves and get "WRFA" passed.
tisan outrage at the media compa-
Nathan J. Diament is director of the
nies for this practice and warned
Institute for Public Affairs-Union of
them to clean up their act or face
Orthodox Jewish Congregations of
regulatory sanctions. The American
America.
Jewish community can retain its
-
respect for the freedom of speech
while simultaneously working in
Congress and the marketplace to
protect our children from being
exposed to media products filled
with violence and vulgarity.
School Support
Along with fighting for families, con-
cern over education and the need to
improve our schools was a prominent
theme in the campaign season.
While some proposals, such as
vouchers or uniform national stan-
dards are polarizing and partisan, it is
possible to construct a productive
bipartisan education agenda as well.
Its core component would be a drive
to recruit new and highly qualified
teachers into our schools.
Many teachers, in America's public
and private schools, are nearing retire-
ment age. An initiative to forgive (or
at least make deductible) the educa-
tional loans of those entering the
teaching profession — whether they
opt to teach in a public, private or
parochial school — will attract new
and better teachers to all our schools.
This would be a simple, but achiev-
able step toward improving the state
of education in America.
• Finally, a rare point of agreement
between Messrs. Al Gore and George
W Bush in the campaign was with
regard to increasing the role cf faith-
based organizations in the provision of
social services. Both candidates recog-
nized the power of faith to change the
lives of the needy and to motivate
people to help those in need effective-
ly and efficiently.
Thus, a carefully crafted "charitable
choice" initiative — one that allows
faith-based entities to receive govern-
ment funding for their programs but
ensures that no needy person is sub-
jected to religious coercion — should
be enjoy bipartisan and Jewish com-
munal support.
A happy consequence of this elec-
tion outcome may accrue to our
community and our government. By
focusing on a consensus agenda such
as that outlined above, we learn how
to work together and diminish the
politics of polarization. Too often,
we make perfect the enemy of the
good and demonize those who
would compromise to achieve some-
thing, rather than hold out for
everything. America's voters are try-
ing to force everyone to get along or
get nothing; the Jewish community
must choose which it prefers under
our new government. ❑
from page 41
is a small chapel that houses Berlin's
only egalitarian congregation. As I
attended services on the first day of
Sukkot, a team of heavily armed Ger-
man policemen guarded the entrance
with three tough-looking Israeli security
guards in black shirts and ties and
employed by the Judische Gemeinde zu
Berlin, the umbrella organization of the
city's Jews. Parked in front was a bright
green armored personnel carrier. Tight
security is de rigueur at Berlin's seven
synagogues, but the additional security,
one of the Israelis told me, was because
of the war footing back home.
I had never been to Germany
before. I never understood why on
earth Jews would want to live there,
why the American Jewish friend
whom we visited, who has been there
two years, liked Berlin so much.
Now I do. Berlin is an exciting, cos-
mopolitan city. It reminded me of my
native New York, and before World
War II, it was New York and Holly-
wood rolled into one — a Jewish
mecca. Yet how eerie to be safe in
Berlin, worrying about friends and fam-
ily in Jerusalem, cell phone in hand,
checking in a dozen times a day.
And how inevitable it is — and
not only because we were in Germany
— for the specter of the Holocaust to
loom heavily at a dark and anxious
time like this.
Terrible Comparison
let me be emphatic —
I do not
equate the Arabs with the Nazis. That
kind of thinking, however tempting
and commonplace in inflamed times,
is wrong and unproductive.
At the same time, I am all too
aware that some Palestinians burying
their dead, too many of whom are
children, probably think that our sol-
diers are doing to them what the Ger-
mans did to us. This comparison is
obscene, and so is the spectacle of
Palestinians urging their youths to
throw stones, placing them on the
front lines so that the world can
watch on TV as the Jewish Goliath
mows down the Arab David.
Peaceniks like me are frustrated and
confused, compelled by heartbreaking
events to wonder if we have been wrong
all along, if as our right-wing skeptics
have been telling us for years, all the
Arabs understand is force.
I struggle to believe that this is not
true, to persevere in the pursuit of
that elusive peace for which Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave
his life, five long years ago from the
week I spent in Berlin. ❑
—