Back from the RAC’s Consultation on Conscience

April 28, 2009 · Filed Under Baum's Blog 

Last week, I attended the Religious Action Center’s Consultation on Conscience in Washington DC.  The best speaker was definitely Cory Booker – see my last blog.

What follows might very well be my most boring blog entry ever.  But, since I went to a 2+ day conference, I thought you should all hear about it.  There were some excellent speakers, and some, um, well, not so excellent speakers.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment was a lunch-time session that was supposed to be about great congregation social action programs.  I figured I would take some “best practices” back to Congregation Beth Adam.  They had a suggestion for livening up High Holiday food drives, so I listened with great enthusiasm… until they shared the idea: have people only bring items that start with the same letter as their last name.  That’s the best congregations have to offer for social action?!  I know it’s not, because I have heard about and seen wonderful activities throughout the country.

Here’s a run down of some of the speakers.  Scott Morris (of Church Health Center in Memphis, TN) spoke on healthcare.  Take-away message: the answer to better health care is not technology; it’s (drum roll please…..) prevention!

Anat Hoffman spoke from the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC – a great organization with a horrible acronym).  She was entertaining – although quite serious when she expressed several concerns (including some about Avigdor Lieberman).  Her most compelling point: Israeli Jews would like Judaism more if they knew (more) about liberal Judaism.  I agree – send them to our virtual synagogue!

Eboo Patel (Interfaith Youth Chorps) spoke passionately; he is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.  Has anyone read it?  I haven’t, but I might.  So, let me know what you thought of the book.

The final day of the conference involved hearing from a variety of elected officials.  They were good, but here’s the problem… When you get high-up officials like the RAC attracts to speak at its conferences, they can say very little that they haven’t already said publicly.  And given that the RAC gives them fewer than 20 minutes to talk, they really can’t say much.  So, nobody really said anything bold or new or shocking or terribly interesting – but since I sat through a day of it, allow me to share some of it with you.

The one person who spoke who was not an elected official was Seymour Hersh – Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author.  But, that talk was off the record, so my lips are sealed (or rather, my keyboard is not clicking).

Representative Nita Lowey spoke about the importance of a US-Israeli partnership.  Her main points: the budget Obama sees should have $2.75 million in security assistance for Israel.  She’s worried about Iran as a threat to Israeli security – not just global security.  Obama’s plan for dealing with the Middle East has carrots – but big sticks as well.  Lots of speakers quoted lots of other speakers at the conference.  I liked Lowey’s quote from Winston Churchill: “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Senator Susan Collins spoke, and she was pretty cool.  She is one of only three Republicans who voted for the economic stimulus bill.  While she has received a lot of criticism for that from others, this group of Jewish leaders at the Consultation on Conscience gave her a standing ovation. After she spoke for a bit on antisemitism (it was Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, after all), she then turned her focus to the environment.

Senator Barbara Boxer pointed out that most of our problems connect to the environment.  Most astounding was that she said there was a report emailed to the Bush White House from the EPA about the dangers of the environmental situation.  Lawyers told Bush’s people not to open the email because if they did, they would have had to do something about it.  So they didn’t.  Oy vay!

So, overall, I think I should stop writing this – the world’s longest blog.  But, hey, it was a long conference.  Good news is – lots of cool people were there.  So, if you saw the full agenda for the Consultation on Conscience, you might notice I didn’t write about all of the speakers.  Like all good politicians, I will neither confirm nor deny whether I might have skipped a session (or two) to hang out with some friends and colleagues in the bar.

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One Response to “Back from the RAC’s Consultation on Conscience”

  1. Noam Shelef Says:
    April 30th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Just as the Consultation was wrapping up, I came with Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish to meet with a group at the RAC, (though I don’t believe that it was the plenary of the Consultation). I had the sense that he really inspired the audience (myself included). While there’s no recording of that session, you can listen to his other comments from that Washington visit at http://www.peacenow.org/updates.asp?rid=0&cid=6144. I recommend it.

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