May 26, 2011
J Street to remain on Boston Jewish council
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The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston voted to retain the membership of J Street, despite a challenge on technical grounds.
The council voted Wednesday night to retain its 41 active groups as members, including J Street and Boston Workmen’s Circle, which some members of the council said are not pro-Israel enough, the Boston Globe reported.
Workmen’s Circle angered some in the Boston Jewish community when it rented out space for a panel discussion by activists who favor boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.
J Street’s membership was opposed by the media watchdog group CAMERA. While CAMERA objects to J Street on ideological grounds, saying that the groups accepts money from critics of Israel and associates with activist who support divestment, it opposed J Street’s membership on the council based on what it said was a violation of bylaws, since J Street took over the seat of its allied organization, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom .
CAMERA has threatened to leave the council over the vote to retain J Street, according to the Boston Globe.
In an unscientific poll on the website of the Boston weekly newspaper the Jewish Advocate 1,653 people voted that J Street should be expelled from the council and 1,005 voted that the group should be allowed to remain.
