First of two parts.
Malcolm Hoenlien may be the most influential Jew in America.
He also is 100 percent unknown to Reform and Conservative Jews, beyond the modest boundaries of Orthodox Jewry, the tiniest dimension of the American Jewish community.
Here is the most fascinating aspect of Mr. Hoenlien’s keynote address at last evening’s opening of the West Coast Orthodox Union convention at Beth Jacob synagogue on the Westside:
Mr. Hoenlien could have delivered the identical oration in 1948, in 1956, in 1973, in 1981, in 1987, in 1993, or after Sept. 11 when Palestinians jubilantly celebrated the deaths of Jews lost in the World Trade Center terrorist massacre.
Who else, what religion or movement, dare make such a bold, unprecedented claim? Just Judaism.
Only the attackers’ names change from generation to generation. Since the time of Moses, their central motive has not budged.
Consistently through the last three millennia – if Millennials will forgive name-poaching – the objective of worldwide Jew-haters has not moved a centimeter:
“Kill the Jews!”
Today, from college campuses to the United Nations, across the globe from subtle enemies to fiercely determined Israel-mongers, history’s longest-running hate war blazes brightly, ceaselessly, never resting, never calling a time-out.
As nearly nobody outside of activist Orthodoxy knows, for the past 30 years, the widely respected Mr. Hoenlien has been executive vice chair of the second lengthiest named group in U.S. history, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
David Horovitz of The Times of Israel recently brought Mr. Hoenlien into more intimate focus:
“A fast-talking, Orthodox, no-nonsense Philadelphia native, former Soviet Jewry activist and self-styled ‘activist executive,’ Mr. Hoenlein is an endlessly fascinating interviewee, forever throwing out tantalizing tidbits of information about meetings with presidents and prime ministers and security chiefs and kings. He seems to have met most everyone — including Syria’s Bashar Assad — and been most everywhere — though not Iran. If Benjamin Netanyahu is Time magazine’s king of Israel, then Mr. Hoenlein is, at the very least, Mr. American Jewry, and arguably the most influential American Jew in the world (until or unless Bernie Sanders says different). He’s a key bridge between Israel and the American Jewish leadership; he’s also been a central player in relations between U.S. administrations and Israel. He’s able to meet with world leaders who have no ties with Israel, some of whom doubtless see him, too, as an entrée to American corridors of power.”
(To be continued)