I have two political heroes – one was President of the United States; the other, my dad. Together they taught me to be true to my moral compass and to stand up in the public arena for what I believe.
I have long admired the work of J Street and you personally. Thank you for sharing this fascinating and inspiring personal history - and thank you and the team for the work you do daily to support a secure, stable and just future for Israel living in peace with its neighbors. Yeah, a tall order but I guess’s that’s why Jimmy Carter asked that “Imagine” be played at his memorial.
Very interesting about your father, his actions and views. When my father got out of the American army after WW II, he accompanied Mordechai Ben-Tov, the first shaliach of Hashomer Hatzair to the U.S. and eventually one of the 37 signatories of the 1948 Declaration of Independence, to a meeting with the members of UNSCOP, to present them with the HH proposal for a bi-national state as the way to end the British Mandate. I like your 23 State Solution proposal, which is an expansion of Prof. Johan Galtung's 6 State Middle East Community proposal, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. This was of course before the 22 member state Arab Peace Initiative that was declared at the Arab League Summit Conference in Beirut in 2002, the Abraham Accords and the current key role of Saudi Arabia in the prospects for a resolution of the conflict.
I appreciate the work you have done with J Street. My father's cousin, David Wdowinski, a follower of Jabotinsky, was a frequent visitor to our home when I was growing up. He wrote a book, "And We Are Not Saved," about his work as a leader in the Warsaw Ghetto. He would be disappointed with me for my support of J Street, but I know who I am and what I believe. Our parents' generation was responding to different pressures than the ones we face now.
Marvelous column. I have long been intrigued with the Bergson group which I read about in Judith Tydor Baumel's book The Bergson Boys and knew your father was part of it. Indeed, their tactics would now be standard. Owen Kessler, in Palestine 1936, reports that Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary in 1938 that, if the British did not lift the blockade, 6 million European Jews would die. My parents got out: arrived in NY in 1940 from Vienna via Paris.
Thanks Evelyn. I have a lot more of the story to tell - and one part is that while my father was in Vienna in '37-'39 leading rescue efforts, my mother's family was trying to get out. Thankfully they did in 1938. Our families may well have crossed paths!
Thank you Jeremy for this incredible piece of writing & for your courage. You always help us to look at complicated situations with new possible solutions &hope!
Interesting piece re your Dad. The Bergson group I'm familiar with. I used to have this as my Facebook cover. https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31259463618_4.jpg Without getting into Jimmy Carter's Presidency (or post-Presidency); acknowledging obviously Camp David and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty; Carter wasn't my choice in 1980. Nor was John Anderson! Which left...!
Amazing!!! Did you know about my dad's involvement? BTW, in the new DC Jewish museum, one of those Emergency Committee posters is in a display case and it just happens to be next to a J Street poster from an immigration rally. I asked the museum staff about the placement (in a display about Jewish activism) and they had NO idea when they put them next to each other that my father was the Exec Director of the Emergency Committee and I was the "ED" of J Street. It was truly 'beshert'!!
So great! My dad was deeply involved in the production of the pageant as he was back from the War and jumped back in as Exec Director of the Committee. I've been helping Aviva Kempner with a documentary she's doing about Ben Hecht, which will have a major section on his involvement with the Bergson work. I have an original script and an album with photos and memorabilia about it that he put together.
Tragically, history repeats itself. Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn Israelis and Jews globally into wars that have increased anti-Semitism, with much worse yet to come.
He needs to be arrested and tried by the International Criminal Court for his many crimes, in a setting akin to that of Adolf Eichmann's trial, with a similar result.
He was hated by Ariel Sharon and the Rabins; and Leah Rabin blamed him for her husband Yitzhak's tragic assassination. She believed that peace was impossible with Netanyahu at the helm of Israel's government; and her views were prescient and prophetic.
Tragically, no Jew is safe anywhere because of what Netanyahu has done, to avoid prison for his crimes. And young Jews on college campuses realize this, and need to be commended for standing against Netanyahu’s nonstop butchery.
Last night I attended a zoom program, with Dr. Angela Davis, speaking on “ Our Work in the Days Ahead: a conversation for antiracist white people with Angela Davis”.
This morning, I got a message asking for my feedback and any comments I might want to offer.: was it good, bad, or didn’t attend. I responded bad and then when they actually wanted more input, I wrote the following:
The evil of racism in the United States is so clear, including its horrendous origins.
To equate the complexity of the situation in Palestine to American racism is intellectually simplistic and emotionally cold. The horrors that forced many Europeans Jews to flee to the only place that would accept them with open arms, along with the history of Jews being forced from one country to another for hundreds and hundreds of years is not the same as the evil of slavers and enslavers.
One is not more or less evil than the other, but they are not the same.
What is happening in Gaza is evil, yes, as is the racism in the US. Why do these two situations have to become the source of more antisemitism?
I have long admired the work of J Street and you personally. Thank you for sharing this fascinating and inspiring personal history - and thank you and the team for the work you do daily to support a secure, stable and just future for Israel living in peace with its neighbors. Yeah, a tall order but I guess’s that’s why Jimmy Carter asked that “Imagine” be played at his memorial.
Very interesting about your father, his actions and views. When my father got out of the American army after WW II, he accompanied Mordechai Ben-Tov, the first shaliach of Hashomer Hatzair to the U.S. and eventually one of the 37 signatories of the 1948 Declaration of Independence, to a meeting with the members of UNSCOP, to present them with the HH proposal for a bi-national state as the way to end the British Mandate. I like your 23 State Solution proposal, which is an expansion of Prof. Johan Galtung's 6 State Middle East Community proposal, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. This was of course before the 22 member state Arab Peace Initiative that was declared at the Arab League Summit Conference in Beirut in 2002, the Abraham Accords and the current key role of Saudi Arabia in the prospects for a resolution of the conflict.
So interesting! Thanks for sharing, Hillel.
I appreciate the work you have done with J Street. My father's cousin, David Wdowinski, a follower of Jabotinsky, was a frequent visitor to our home when I was growing up. He wrote a book, "And We Are Not Saved," about his work as a leader in the Warsaw Ghetto. He would be disappointed with me for my support of J Street, but I know who I am and what I believe. Our parents' generation was responding to different pressures than the ones we face now.
Marvelous column. I have long been intrigued with the Bergson group which I read about in Judith Tydor Baumel's book The Bergson Boys and knew your father was part of it. Indeed, their tactics would now be standard. Owen Kessler, in Palestine 1936, reports that Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary in 1938 that, if the British did not lift the blockade, 6 million European Jews would die. My parents got out: arrived in NY in 1940 from Vienna via Paris.
Thanks Evelyn. I have a lot more of the story to tell - and one part is that while my father was in Vienna in '37-'39 leading rescue efforts, my mother's family was trying to get out. Thankfully they did in 1938. Our families may well have crossed paths!
Thanks to you, Jeremy, and to your dad and Jimmy Carter - the best human being who ever held the office of President.
Fascinating history, much of which I had not known. Glad you were at the inspiring service for my president.
Thank you Jeremy for this incredible piece of writing & for your courage. You always help us to look at complicated situations with new possible solutions &hope!
Interesting piece re your Dad. The Bergson group I'm familiar with. I used to have this as my Facebook cover. https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/31259463618_4.jpg Without getting into Jimmy Carter's Presidency (or post-Presidency); acknowledging obviously Camp David and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty; Carter wasn't my choice in 1980. Nor was John Anderson! Which left...!
Amazing!!! Did you know about my dad's involvement? BTW, in the new DC Jewish museum, one of those Emergency Committee posters is in a display case and it just happens to be next to a J Street poster from an immigration rally. I asked the museum staff about the placement (in a display about Jewish activism) and they had NO idea when they put them next to each other that my father was the Exec Director of the Emergency Committee and I was the "ED" of J Street. It was truly 'beshert'!!
Not the US part/Emergency Committee…. (I also post every year about Peter Bergson’s/Ben Hecht/Marlon Brando 1946 Broadway play “A Flag is Born” https://x.com/WashingtonViews/status/1699024247908147391
Not the US part/Emergency Committee…. (I also post every year about Peter Bergson’s/Ben Hecht/Marlon Brando 1946 Broadway play “A Flag is Born” https://x.com/WashingtonViews/status/1699024247908147391
So great! My dad was deeply involved in the production of the pageant as he was back from the War and jumped back in as Exec Director of the Committee. I've been helping Aviva Kempner with a documentary she's doing about Ben Hecht, which will have a major section on his involvement with the Bergson work. I have an original script and an album with photos and memorabilia about it that he put together.
If interested: From April 1947. Note one of the signatories https://x.com/WashingtonViews/status/1883138714312069284
Yes. He was Exec Director of the League from 46-48...
Thanks, Laura. Everything about the service was so perfect. I couldn't get over the Ford and Mondale eulogies and the timeliness of the messages.
Tragically, history repeats itself. Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn Israelis and Jews globally into wars that have increased anti-Semitism, with much worse yet to come.
He needs to be arrested and tried by the International Criminal Court for his many crimes, in a setting akin to that of Adolf Eichmann's trial, with a similar result.
He was hated by Ariel Sharon and the Rabins; and Leah Rabin blamed him for her husband Yitzhak's tragic assassination. She believed that peace was impossible with Netanyahu at the helm of Israel's government; and her views were prescient and prophetic.
Tragically, no Jew is safe anywhere because of what Netanyahu has done, to avoid prison for his crimes. And young Jews on college campuses realize this, and need to be commended for standing against Netanyahu’s nonstop butchery.
Last night I attended a zoom program, with Dr. Angela Davis, speaking on “ Our Work in the Days Ahead: a conversation for antiracist white people with Angela Davis”.
This morning, I got a message asking for my feedback and any comments I might want to offer.: was it good, bad, or didn’t attend. I responded bad and then when they actually wanted more input, I wrote the following:
The evil of racism in the United States is so clear, including its horrendous origins.
To equate the complexity of the situation in Palestine to American racism is intellectually simplistic and emotionally cold. The horrors that forced many Europeans Jews to flee to the only place that would accept them with open arms, along with the history of Jews being forced from one country to another for hundreds and hundreds of years is not the same as the evil of slavers and enslavers.
One is not more or less evil than the other, but they are not the same.
What is happening in Gaza is evil, yes, as is the racism in the US. Why do these two situations have to become the source of more antisemitism?
This is heartbreaking to me.