oints of view
JFK from page 43
Commentary
nation, and what a great effort they
made, which I think has made
their role influential, was in educa-
tion: education of their children.
And therefore they've been able to
establish a pretty strong position for
themselves:'
Kennedy added, "With all the
influence that all you gentlemen
have in the Negro community ...
[you] really have to concentrate
on what I think the Jewish com-
munity has done on educating their
children, on making them stay in
school, and all the rest."
For blacks, the president's advice
might have been good, patron-
izing, beside the point or all of the
above. But for Jews, it encapsulated
the way Kennedy admired them
and saw them as a success story
of American immigrant upward
mobility.
An example of that trajectory was
the Jewish attorney Lewis Weinstein,
who built a close relationship with
Kennedy and is the source of the sec-
ond piece of evidence.
Weinstein had been born in
Lithuania in 1905. He had come to
America when he was 15 months
old, graduated from Harvard and
its law school, served in the army
on Eisenhower's staff during World
War II, and had returned to become
a partner at the Boston law firm of
Foley, Hoag and Eliot.
One day in the summer of 1946,
Weinstein's partner Thomas Eliot,
whose grandfather Charles had
been president of Harvard, walked
into Weinstein's office and said,
"Lou, meet Jack Kennedy:' From
this classic Boston political moment
— the Brahmin lawyer introduc-
ing the Irish Catholic politician to a
Jewish partner who could help him
raise campaign contributions — an
enduring relationship began.
The relationship came into play
later when the plight of Soviet
Jewry was starting to emerge as a
concern for American Jews. And
this particular anecdote is at least a
partial corrective to the claim in Gal
Beckerman's well-received 2010 his-
tory When They Come for Us We'll
Be Gone that Soviet Jewry "was an
issue that John F. Kennedy ignored."
It is true that American Jewish
organizations were rebuffed when
they tried the usual route — hav-
ing friendly members of Congress
contact the State Department.
The assistant secretary of state for
congressional relations, Frederick
Dutton, sent Sen. Keating of New
York a long letter acknowledging
that Russian synagogues had been
44
November 21 • 2013
Di
closed and Jewish cemeteries des-
ecrated as part of "the long-term
Soviet campaign against religion
generally:' but fretting that the
American government could not do
much about it.
"It is doubtful if further protesta-
tions would be helpful to the Jews
in the Soviet Union," the letter con-
cluded.
But that was not the end of
the story. Weinstein, as he later
recounted in a little-noticed 1985
article for the journal American
Jewish History, went to Robert
Kennedy and succeeded in having
a mention of the Soviet closing of
synagogues included in President
Kennedy's September 1963 speech
to the United Nations General
Assembly.
Weinstein persuaded the presi-
dent to have Averell Harriman raise
the matter with Khrushchev dur-
ing Harriman's negotiating mission
to Moscow on arms control. And
in a White House meeting with
President Kennedy in November
1963, Weinstein, who was soon
to take over as chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish Organizations,
launched into a plea on the issue.
"You know, it's getting pretty bad,"
Weinstein said. "There are murder
trials going on. They call them
economic trials, but the defendant
is always a Jew. He's charged with
black market [trading] or some-
thing else like that; he's always con-
victed and executed. They're mur-
der trials, in which the defendant is
murdered and not the murderer."
Weinstein told Kennedy that
Soviet authorities had closed the
gates, slowing the flow of Jewish
refugees out of Russia to a trickle.
And he said no American president
had intervened with the Russian
authorities on behalf of the Jews
since President Theodore Roosevelt
had protested to Czar Nicholas II
after the Kishinev massacre.
Kennedy replied: "Well, here's one
president who's ready to do some-
thing."
Kennedy told Weinstein to orga-
nize a conference in Washington
about the Soviet Jewry issue. The
president told Weinstein to schedule
the meeting for some time soon
after Kennedy returned from an
upcoming political trip to Dallas.
❑
Road To Tomorr ow
f
T
he recent National Council of
In the Negev, we traveled to Rahat,
Jewish Women's mission to
the second-largest Arab city in Israel,
Israel, "The Road To Tomorrow:
where we met with Avivit Hai from the
Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arab
Women Leading Change," was devoted
to exploring core issues NCJW women
Issues. NCJW was a founding member
of the Task Force, which now has 100
advocate for both in the United States
and Israel: equality, poverty, human
members. She spoke about the chal-
rights and women's empowerment.
lenges of transitioning a semi-nomadic
NCJW has long been
Bedouin traditional culture into
committed to advanc-
a more modern urban lifestyle.
ing women's status in
Visiting a middle school, we
Israel by helping women
spoke to students about New
Dawn, a program that is using
to develop a stronger
voice at all levels of
community education as an
society. NCJW empha-
intervention tool.
sizes empowerment and
We also met some of the
Bedouin woman working with
leadership programs for
women and girls as well
YEDID (an NCJW Signature
as gender equality as the
Grantee fighting to empower
cornerstones of its Israel
women to help break the cycle
Sharon Lipton
Granting Program.
of poverty). These inspiring
Highlights of the mis-
community activists told us
sion included meetings with founder of
about the challenges they face as
Women of the Wall, Anat Hoffman, and
women living in a Bedouin community,
Susan Weiss, executive director of the
and their frustration that girls are not
Center for Women's Justice, as well
treated equally to boys nor do they
as meeting with Israeli women from
have the same freedoms.
Women trained through the YEDID
grassroots activists to politicians, poli-
cymakers and leading change-makers.
program recently worked on a declara-
Two unique opportunities included
tion to give to candidates currently
visits to meet with women activists
running for office about what they
in the Bedouin town of Rahat in the
want to see happen in their commu-
Negev and in Ramallah, the admin-
nity. They also spoke about their belief
istrative capital of the Palestinian
that they can make a difference as
Authority.
they have achieved several successes
Visiting Ramallah was an interesting
resulting from their community orga-
experience. Traveling on a Palestinian
nizing efforts.
armored bus without our Israeli guide,
They were able to bring a second
we waited half an hour at the Kalandia
bank into Rahat to better address
checkpoint to cross into the West Bank.
the community's financial needs
There, we met with Palestinian rep-
and promote market competition to
resentatives of One Voice Palestine,
ensure fair rates. They were also able
a grassroots international movement
to successfully lobby the Ministry
training the next generation of peace
of Transportation to provide public
activists. To implement its mission, One
transportation within the city and to
neighboring cities, becoming the first
Voice utilizes a multi-pronged approach:
recruitment, civic engagement, educa-
Bedouin area in Israel to have public
tion, youth leadership and mobilization.
transportation.
The women we met with were articu-
Its activities are coordinated with One
Voice Israel located in Tel Aviv.
late and passionate about working to
improve their community and the lives
One Voice emphasizes the moder-
of women and children. Although they
ate point of view among both Israelis
and Palestinians who advocate for
still were receiving some resistance
a two-state solution and a peaceful
in their male-dominated homes, they
end to the conflict. We spoke with
were now truly confident and empow-
young Palestinian women leaders in
ered.
the movement who shared the hopes
NCJW is indeed making a difference
and challenges of their work, believing
in Israel. It will continue to advance
empowerment programs for women
in a political solution and that "two
states" is the only viable way to end
and minorities at all levels of society
via its Israel Granting Program.
the conflict. They emphasized that the
conflict is not about religion, but about
land. The women we met with were
Sharon Lipton is Jewish Community Relations
Palestinian Christians, Muslims and
Council of Metropolitan Detroit president and
Armenian Eastern Orthodox.
a current NCJW national board member.
❑
Ira Stoll is the author of JFK,
Conservative by Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt. He was managing editor of
the Forward and North American editor
of the Jerusalem Post.