By the Presidents, He's a President: An Interview with Alex Schindler
MOMENT INTERVIEWS ALEX SCHINDLER BY THE PRESIDENTS, HE'S A PRESIDENT PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL ARON Why is there a Presidents' Conference? And how does its mandate make it different from all the many...
...He's certainly a genius...
...Some people think he muffed the opportunity for a comprehensive settlement after the Yom Kippur War, but I don't think that could have been done...
...Our budget is small, relatively speaking, just $175,000...
...Once I saw him address the Synagogue Council when JDL hecklers started into him, and by the expression on his face you could see that this wasn't the normal response to hecklers...
...Ford would open the meeting, say something nice about Max Fisher, and a few kind words about the Jewish community, and Kissinger would take it from there...
...A few years back, there was a widespread report that Kissinger had said, "Why should I talk to the Presidents' Conference when I can get it firsthand from Simcha Dinitz...
...What he found the most difficult job I found the most pleasant...
...that's what I feel, even though I always ask myself if it wasn't part of his negotiating posture...
...I'd like to see that kind of democratic involvement develop on a de facto basis, rather than trying to write a constitution for it...
...We want to take at least a medium range view on some selected issues...
...I made a phone call and two days later they left for Israel...
...But that's an easy one...
...We never met with Ford where Kissinger wasn't present...
...The problem I had was with whom to speak in Israel...
...Never, not on any issue...
...And maybe, these days, people want facilitators rather than leaders...
...What kind of staff and budget do you have...
...According to the story that gets told, John Foster Dulles called Nahum Goldmann in to see him during the Suez crisis, back in 1956, and showed Goldmann his calendar, which listed appointments with 17 different "spokesmen" for American Jewry...
...By the way, I have talked to Mena-chem Begin and I don't think he is far from the consensus...
...Is it, then, really an organization of the top Jewish leaders...
...It had 17 organizations, and now we're up to 32...
...Whenever a problem arises, we communicate with one another...
...The low-level officials are sometimes not easy to deal with...
...But on an ongoing basis, we just haven't been able to do it...
...I've not succeeded very well in this, but we have organized several key task forces...
...And I believe him when he says that criticism from the Jewish community disturbed him most of all...
...In April, on both substantive and tactical grounds, I decided that I would throw in with Carter...
...Did he keep his word to you...
...Regarding his Middle East policy, I don't think the bottom line has been written...
...But what I have found is that the higher you move among the people you're dealing with, the less frightened they are...
...What, for you, is the greatest challenge...
...And I think they may have learned something important from the rejection of the report of the Committee of Ten on the Russian Jewish dropouts...
...I think "prospect" is too strong a word, but it is a possibility...
...But the Presidents' Conference is, at best, a congress of organizations, not of people...
...And once we do that, it's inevitable that we will be developing positions of our own...
...Which you'll then have to sell to the boards of the organizations in whose names you speak...
...We have to be more thoughtful, we have to do more planning, we have still to become a community...
...Not too long ago the American Jewish community had visible, and in some cases, heroic leadership, like the great rabbis, Stephen Wise, Abba Hillel Silver...
...Continued on page 57 Not so...
...What would the platforms look like if we developed a party politics...
...And also the easiest...
...But that's not because they don't want to...
...Before you took office, the Conference was widely perceived as a rubber stamp for Israel's views...
...Does that mean that there are real differences...
...Does that no longer apply...
...Sometimes I have a suspicion that after the deaths of leaders, we idealize the past, and attribute to them qualities which we didn't find in them during their lives...
...And then his Jewish-ness...
...OK, then take energy, on which we're beginning to work, and where I don't expect major in-terorganizational differences to develop...
...Do you feel you've accomplished anything...
...Gradually, Ford came to assert himself more and more, although it was still clear to everyone that Kissinger was the architect of American foreign policy...
...But America is today completely different...
...But the real work gets done because the member organizations contribute both money and, more important, staff for particular projects...
...Very often you ask yourself, "Is he using me...
...He said it was the problem of keeping-all the various viewpoints from going into a hundred different directions...
...I think there is a Jewish part of his heart...
...And then we make our own decision...
...What kinds of projects...
...He is a master negotiator, and, as such, he has to manipulate people...
...In America, there was a basic, fundamental disagreement between hawks and doves, but in Israel it's more subtle, more a question of process...
...At least, that was the original reason for its being brought into being...
...And I can tell you this: in a year of being in this job, I have never ever received a call from Dinitz saying, "This is what you have to do...
...And on some matters, we're the better judges of what's in their best interest vis-a-vis the United States...
...Still, there is the frustration that I haven't been able to accomplish as much as I had hoped to...
...I have thought about it often...
...I think he acted as a Jew, was continually conscious of his Jewish-ness, and while he looked at Israel objectively, I think a part of him was committed to the security of Israel and the continuity of the Jewish people...
...Well, I've felt for a long time that the Conference could not rest with expressing the opinion of American Jews to the American government, that we ought to make those opinions known to the Israelis as well...
...I personally met with every candidate, including even Wallace...
...The organizations didn't buy it, and the masses didn't buy it, and now the Israelis are beginning to realize that American Jews must be involved in Jewish decision-making, and that by involving them, we do not weaken Jewish strength...
...excluded...
...Speaking of politics, did you have much contact with the "Carter Jews...
...You supported Carter in the election...
...He was ordained in 1953, named Vice President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1967, and President in 1973...
...So you think there is a prospect that the bulk of American Jewry could find itself at odds with the policy of the Israeli government...
...They tend to interpret any divergence at all as opposition...
...Yes, but some of its members have been democratically elected...
...Do you have a sense as to why that is so...
...Rabin, for example, has a certain image of America that comes out of his experience here during the Nixon years...
...Can you give us an example...
...We have people who hold office for a time, even people with special access to the White House...
...I try to interpret our thinking to them...
...Kissinger, of course, is a much more complicated picture...
...Yes, of course, but I have to say that it is much easier to achieve consensus than I would have imagined...
...And Faisal...
...In the beginning he leaned completely on Kissinger...
...We take Israeli views very seriously, we give them powerful consideration, but we've had some differences where we've stuck to our guns...
...Certain American Jewish leaders appeared to think that they could simply pass the proposal without the consent of the people, of the American Jews...
...But for a while now, we've not had anyone who could plausibly claim genuine leadership...
...ther you people get yourselves organized, or I won't see any of you...
...That doesn't mean that we're not fully supportive of Israel, even though the Israelis sometimes don't understand that...
...But that's a peculiar thing, because if it is the voice, the body doesn't know it...
...Most of the people who call themselves hawks, the Likud people, do not propose the equivalent of bombing Hanoi...
...And it is true that in the past, there have been real problems of respect...
...Are you saying that the Israelis are beginning to have some respect for American Jews, for American Jewish leadership...
...And there are other things...
...The question that divides people there is how much risk should be taken for peace...
...How do the Israelis let you know their views...
...Or people who are bright, or outstanding cultural figures...
...Why is the U.S...
...Whatever was the case during the War, I can report that Israel has been well served by military supplies in the years following it...
...I never found him to be lying...
...I meet with them when I am in Israel, and the minutes of our meetings are distributed to the whole Knesset and to the press...
...Yes, and I went a little bit more public than I might otherwise have done, because the supporters of Ford were conveying the impression that the entire Jewish establishment was committed to Ford...
...The general impression is that the Conference specializes in public statements and in meetings with high Washington officials...
...He was deeply wounded...
...a lot of what he says is rhetoric...
...You had quite a bit to say about autonomy and independence when you did take on the chairmanship...
...I've disagreed with him on many issues, and have expressed my views to him on things like Cambodia, Chile, the wanton disregard for civil liberties on the American scene, but on the Middle East, after studying the positions of both the pro- and anti-Kissinger factions, I'm inclined to believe that he was doing the right thing...
...In January 1976, he was elected Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations...
...I call them, and I ask them...
...Usually it involved Israel, and it was natural for Kissinger to be there...
...What was it like dealing with Ford and Kissinger...
...In the early days of the primaries my responsibility was to make sure that we had every possibility covered...
...If you only go to the government leaders, you only get the party line...
...And we've widened not only our membership, but also our scope, which now touches Jewish interests anywhere in the world, except for the United States...
...Would a Likud victory in Israel present the same problem...
...All the major Jewish organizations have real difficulty in communicating effectively with their members...
...Somebody called me recently and told me about a family in Rumania that couldn't get out...
...But that's not what happened...
...But I am convinced that independent support is worth more to them in the long run...
...And how does its mandate make it different from all the many other Jewish organizations...
...We'd have to include domestic Jewish issues as well...
...The differences within the American Jewish community are not as great as they once appeared to me, when I was on the outside...
...Because up until now, there's been an impression that they really have contempt for the community...
...But I am now trying to make us more deliberative, not just going into action when a crisis erupts...
...You're not about to create a politics in the United States around Israeli issues, such as the West Bank— yet that may be the only issue in the community around which there's intense and thoughtful disagreement...
...I have a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't have Jo resign from the Presidents' Conference, because the dominant consensus of the American Jewish community would not support such an extreme position...
...One of the banes of our existence is the failure of our member organizations to communicate the fact of our existence to their members...
...There's some truth to that...
...You're suggesting a more democratic approach to Jewish decision-making...
...Are there any real issues...
...That's really not the fair thing to say anymore...
...He's a mystery, a force of nature that can't easily be described...
...and they were wrong...
...In a way I suppose it is, but actually it's become a conference of organizations rather than of individuals...
...We've kept the title because it gives us more prestige in Washington than we'd otherwise have...
...And he was the man through whom a healthy slice of Jewish destiny worked itself out...
...Or take American arms sales to the Arab countries, where our position was somewhat different from that of the Israelis—yet our organizations were comfortable with it...
...Look here," said Dulles, "eiAlex Schindler was born in Munich in 1925, fled Germany in 1938, and fought in World War II...
...Begin himself is prepared to give up territory...
...He's a very, very complex personality...
...I think we fell into a trap when we started applying words like "hawk" and "dove" to Israeli politics...
...I'm convinced of his fundamental commitment...
...No, I don't...
...After all, Sadat calls him brother too...
...That's certainly a satisfying thing...
...If Ford had won, I would have had to become the leader of the opposition, and perhaps resign from the Conference...
...I did not have many dealings with Ford...
...And no dove says, "what the hell are we doing here...
...Sure—take the reaction to the Abu Daoud affair...
...The real question is whether it would be wise, at this point, to devote real energy to trying to establish an American Jewish political structure, with all that that entails...
...If you act like a sham-mas, you get treated like a shammas...
...Because there we have other organizations, and we operate under a different umbrella—the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council...
...we've always been primarily reactive...
...We spoke with one of your predecessors in this job the other day, and asked him what was the most difficult part of the job...
...It's not easy to establish our independence, but I think they're less frightened of the idea now than they were a while back...
...But the people at the top take us seriously...
...In order for there to be a political community, there need to be political issues...
...So I finally settled on the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Knesset, Navon's committee, which includes opposition leaders as well as government leaders...
...Not that he wanted that...
...Sure...
...I find that a difficult idea...
...This has been the most satisfying aspect of my job...
...in the beginning he tried to stay away from the Middle East, knowing what it would put him through...
...We had several meetings, and he was very pleasant...
...Anc we sometimes get the impression that you prefer it that way, that you deliberately maintain a low profile...
...The Ford camp was, of course, completely covered, and I wanted it to be clear that the Democratic candidate understood that Ford didn't own the Jewish community...
...I am assured of his abilities...
...In emergencies, we function fairly well, we can mobilize people quickly...
...There were certain things that slipped out in his conversations which couldn't have been a put-on...
...The one thing we have achieved is that the Presidents' Conference is at least as close as we come to having a voice for American Jewry...
...I find that with patience, and the willingness to listen to everyone, keeping a moderate tone, respecting every view, it is possible to achieve a far greater consensus than I had ever anticipated...
...So Goldmann got together with Phil Klutznick of B'nai B'rith and Maurice Eisendrath at the UAHC and started what was then called the Presidents' Club...
...He would say a few opening words, and turn over the meeting to Kissinger...
...And if you go to the intellectuals, you have just another America-Israel dialogue, with no real importance...
...And the Israelis believed them...
...Andof course Israel has taken over a large portion of this role...
...There were pictures circulated of Ford and Rabin together, Max Fisher's statement, without resignation from his office, Sam Roth-berg's statement, without resignation from his office, Hertzberg's practically endorsing Ford...
...The overwhelming majority of American Jews are clearly unaware of the existence of the Prf dents' Conference...
...The Presidents' Conference exists in order to give voice to the sentiments and convictions of the Jewish community, to represent the Jewish community in Washington...
Vol. 2 • February 1977 • No. 5
