This is part of an ongoing series in which JewishPress.com continues to follow the adjustment to life in Israel of North American new oleh (immigrant) octogenarian Victor Rousso, who joined his daughter and her family who came on aliyah a number of years ago. Both families live in Jerusalem.
On Sunday, Victor Rousso discussed his views on the firestorm over remarks made last week by Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely regarding the American Jewish community, and subsequent efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to extinguish the blaze.
by Victor Rousso
Tzipi Hotovely’s recent remarks regarding the American Jewish community were right on the mark. This is also a test of the new leadership. Israel needs to end the corruption in the government.
According to traditional Judaism, women are endowed with a greater degree of understanding, intelligence and intuition than men.
The response by the Progressive Jewish leaders to her remarks was natural and completely understandable, but blind to their own international interest.
The reality that was exposed was not exclusive to Jewish organizations, but rather is a stumbling block common to all large organizations, be they devoted to business, politics or charity — and of course, governments as well.
I have worked on volunteer projects in the USA since 1940 and have first-hand knowledge of the sequence of events which take place during the change from volunteer leaders to salaried leaders.
Tzipi Hotovely’s statement was a direct threat to the Progressive Jewish leadership and sparked their concern that it would influence the mindset of its members. This is where it becomes a complicated issue, yet almost too obvious to explain, without discussing the sequence of events that created the current popular opinion.
Most of the leaders of large Jewish organizations have become corrupt with the large amount of funds they manage. I was a member of the Anti-Defamation League in 1950, when most of the members were volunteers. But today the head of ADL receives a salary in the range of $700,000 a year and the organization employs 400 to 500 salaried people. In fact, the top 10 Jewish organizations all pay their leaders between $900,000 and $600,000 a year.
So I think it’s important to relate one of the experiences from my own past during the beginning of the American Jewish support for the Progressive movement.
It was 1965 when I opened a retail store in a small shopping center in Alabama. The owner of the store next door was the grand wizard of the local KKK. We develop an honest relationship which most people would not understand today. During our conversations, he made many statements about which I had many doubts. For instance, he stated the KKK’s vocal anti-Semitism was for the main purpose of fund-raising from non-Jewish merchants. He also said that I had more reason to be concerned about members in the Jewish community who were becoming Progressive. As I said, I doubted that at the time.
Tzipi Hotovely’s “crime” in acknowledging the Progressive Jewish agenda has failed miserably, and that it is structurally incapable to deal with the truth.
But she is not wrong. That is my conclusion, too, after living in the American Jewish community most of my life, plus my 20 years of observing the domestic perversion of democracy perpetrated by the Israeli Left.