American Jewry kicks off annual conference, but guest star Obama cancels
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Last update - 18:53 08/11/2009
American Jewry kicks off annual conference, but guest star Obama cancels
By Sara Miller, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Jewish GA, Jewish World
WASHINGTON, D.C. -
The annual General Assembly of the Jewish Federations
of North America kicked off this year in an autumnal
American capital with the disappointing news that the guest star,
President Barack Obama,
canceled at the last minute to attend a
memorial service for the victims of a
shooting at an army base in Texas last week.
The president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel,
will be taking his place as keynote speaker on Tuesday.
Some 3,000 delegates from across the U.S.,
Canada and Israel have been arriving since Friday,
filling the Marriott Hotel with called greetings,
gossip, schmoozing and smatterings of Hebrew.
The security at the event was high
even before the delegates arrived.
With 24 hours to go,
towering security guards with soft voices
and imposing weaponry restricted access to
the conference hall to delegates only.
The fundamental essence of the conference can
be summed up quite simply: What on earth are we
going to do now that the crash has taken a huge
chunk of our money and Madoff has stolen most of the rest?
But all is not lost.
The banners adorning the entrance to the
conference all carry the same optimistic
message:
Anything is possible.
Peace for Israel?
Yes.
Cohesion in the Jewish World?
Absolutely.
Saving the world?
Sure, why not?
There are discussions and
debates with titles such as
"Successful Management in Lean Times,"
and "Applying Business Skills to Jewish Work."
The message: however hard the times are, there is a way ahead.
The meet also focuses on the usual topics
concerning the largest and most influential
Jewish community in the world:
Iran, Israel's image in the world and,
of course, the Goldstone commission
report on the Gaza conflict and its
allegations of war crimes.
Interestingly,
there is a panel on Sunday on the
role of Jews in Washington.
This is a hot topic,
given the central role played by
Jews in the Obama administration -
Emanuel and Obama's key aide David
Axelrod are both of the faith -
and the range of responses garnered by
his immediate engagement with the
settlement issue,
both inside Israel and in the U.S. corridors of power.
Unlike the J Street conference in the same city last week,
this one is pulling all the heavy hitters. Of the triumvirate
of stars on the billing, Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador
to the United States, is the least impressive.
He is the warm-up for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
who would in turn have been upstaged by Obama.
Instead, delegates will have to make do with Emanuel,
and what he will tell the delegates is the subject
of much speculation here.