editorials
F or the past two months, the Knesset’s Constitution,
Law and Justice Committee has held almost daily
meetings to discuss the government’s blockbuster
judicial reform proposal. The reform package seeks to
limit the power of the Supreme Court to review Knesset
legislation; grant control to the ruling coalition over
Supreme Court appointments; reduce the authority
of the attorney general and the government’s legal
advisers; and change the standards for Supreme Court
review of executive branch decisions.

Notwithstanding intense lobbying and protests
against the proposals from both within and outside
Israel, the legislation is moving forward. On Feb. 20,
two aspects of the package passed a fi rst vote of the
Knesset, in what is projected to be a long but steady
adoption process. Those moving the legislation along
are doing so with a single-minded focus on passing
the reforms with the 64-vote majority of the governing
coalition and ignoring the opposition.

But it is not just the parliamentary opposition that is
raising concerns. Cautionary fl ags have been raised by
jurists, academics, politicians, diplomats and hundreds
of thousands of citizen protesters who have taken to
the streets week after week. And perhaps the most
prominent voice of concern has come from Israeli
President Isaac Herzog, who urged the government
to suspend the legislative process and enter
negotiations with the opposition or consultations with
President of Israel Isaac Herzog
the president of the Supreme Court and the attorney
general about the reform issues in an eff ort to reach
consensus for change rather than to impose it through
brute force.

The focus of Herzog’s message is on process —
using dialogue and engagement to work toward
consensus. Neither Herzog nor most others who have
raised concern about the government’s rush to enact
judicial reform are saying that the current system is
perfect. They acknowledge that there are problems.

And they have advanced a variety of approaches and
solutions ranging from tinkering with the number of
votes needed to get things done to a comprehensive
restructuring of the country’s judicial system, including
new rules regarding Israeli basic laws, establishing an
Israeli bill of rights, establishing intermediate appellate
courts and much more. Working through those issues
will take time. But Israel’s newly empowered leaders
are impatient.

Having already ignored Herzog’s plea to pause, it
seems clear that without signifi cant intervention the
managers of the legislation intend to power forward,
even as opposition grows, massive voter protests
continue and Israel moves toward a worrisome crisis
that threatens confi dence in the judiciary, raises
concerns about democracy in the Jewish state and
tears at the country’s social contract.

The person best positioned to step in to calm the
growing chaos is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yes, he is confl icted because of his own legal
complications. But he doesn’t have to address the
merits of the proposals or even become involved in
the negotiations. All he needs to do is bring order to
the process by exerting his infl uence, exercising his
well-developed deal-making skills and infl uencing
the leaders on both sides to engage in meaningful
discussion on the issues. Unfortunately, Netanyahu
appears reluctant to play that role. That’s a shame,
because this is an opportunity for him to show
singular leadership. ■
Should Tech Giants Be Protected?
I n the run-up to last week’s Supreme Court hearing
in the closely watched case entitled Gonzalez v.

Google, we were told that the court’s decision had
the potential to wreak havoc with the internet as
the justices were called on to decide how online
platforms are supposed to handle speech and
content moderation.

The case focuses on Section 230 of the
Communications Decency Act, which provides
protection from liability to tech platforms for most
content contributed to their sites by third parties.

That means that when users post defamatory tweets
or inciting comments on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube
and similar platforms, the platforms themselves aren’t
deemed legally responsible for that content. But what
happens when the platform’s own algorithm promotes
off ensive tweets, comments or videos? Does the
Section 230 protection continue, or does it disappear?
The Gonzalez case was brought by the family of
a 23-year-old American college student who was
killed in a Paris restaurant attack by Islamic State
followers. The family argues that YouTube has some
12 MARCH 2, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
responsibility for the death, since YouTube’s “Up
Next” algorithm promoted radicalizing material to
viewers who viewed similar radicalized posts, and that
process further infl uenced the viewers to engage in
terror attacks.

There is appeal to the Gonzalez theory. It makes sense
to distinguish between material that a platform merely
hosts from material that the platform itself promotes.

But if platforms will be liable for algorithmically
“recommended” content — which is a process that
simply provides links based upon what the viewer has
already selected to watch — the ramifi cations could
be monumental. It would change the way the internet
operates and would likely cause platforms to abandon
any systems that recommend or prioritize material
based upon a user’s inquiry or viewing history. Instead,
as asserted by one of Google’s lawyers, the internet
would be rendered a useless jumble.

In the near three hours of argument on the case,
we saw very little of the “activist” court so many
have complained about. None of the justices seemed
anxious to take this one on. Instead, we heard practical,
thoughtful and challenging questions along with
palpable frustration with the court being called upon
to decide an issue that requires legislative clarifi cation
and guidance.

Although we sympathize with the Gonzalez
family and others who have been so brutally
impacted by horrifi c internet posts, it is not the
responsibility of the courts to rewrite legislation.

Section 230 and its 26 words that are the focus
of the debate in the Gonzalez case were created
by Congress in 1996, when the internet was
in its infancy. A lot has changed since then, including
the advent of the algorithms that are at issue in
the case and developing artifi cial intelligence
that impacts our internet interactions and our
daily lives.

Congress needs to address these issues in a
comprehensive manner. Congress needs to develop
new laws, standards and guidance to deal with
today’s ever-expanding technological development
and use. That is the job of the legislature, not
the courts. ■
Photo courtesy of Greek Ministry of Foreign Aff airs
Israel’s Judicial Reform Showdown



opinions & letters
Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: How to Keep
American Jews Safe Over the Long Term
Yehuda Kurtzer
M y synagogue sent out a
cautiously anxious email
last week about an event this
past Shabbat, a neo-Nazi “Day
of Hate.” The email triggered fuzzy
memories of one of the strangest
episodes that I can remember from my childhood.

Sometime around 1990, in response to local neo-Nazi
activity, some Jews from my community decided to
“fight back.” I don’t know whether they were members
of the militant Jewish Defense League, or perhaps just
sympathetic to a JDL-style approach. When our local
Jewish newspaper covered the story, it ran on its front
cover a full-page photo of a kid from my Orthodox
Jewish high school. The photo showed a teenage boy
from behind, wearing a kippah and carrying a baseball
bat that was leaning threateningly on his shoulder.

As it happens, “Danny” was not a member of the JDL;
he was a kid on his way to play baseball. Sometimes,
a baseball bat is just a baseball bat. But not for us
anxious Jews in America: We want to see ourselves as
protagonists taking control of our destiny, responding
to antisemites with agency, with power, with a plan. I’m
sorry to say that as I look around our community today,
it seems to me that we have agency, and we have
power — but we certainly don’t seem to have a plan.

The tactics that the American Jewish community uses
to fight back against antisemitism are often ineffective
on their own and do not constitute a meaningful strat-
egy in the composite. One is that American Jews join
in a partisan chorus that erodes our politics and fixates
on the antisemitism in the party they don’t vote for.

This exacerbates the partisan divide, which weakens
democratic culture, and turns the weaponizing of
antisemitism into merely a partisan electoral tactic.

Another tactic comes from a wide set of organizations
who declare themselves the referees on the subject
and take to Twitter to name and shame antisemites.

A third tactic is to pour more dollars into protecting
our institutions with robust security measures, which no
one thinks will defeat antisemitism, but at least seeks
to protect those inside those institutions from violence,
though it does little to protect Jews down the street.

A fourth tactic our communal organizations use to
fight antisemitism is to try to exact apologies or even
fines from antisemites to get them to retract their
beliefs and get in line, as the Anti-Defamation League
did with Kyrie Irving, an approach that Yair Rosenberg
has wisely argued is a no-win proposition. Yet another
tactic is the insistence by some that the best way
to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews, which has
the perverse effect of making our commitment to
Jewishness dependent on antisemitism as a motivator.

And finally, the most perverse tactic is that some
on both the right and the left fight antisemitism by
attacking the ADL itself. Since it is so hard to defeat our
opponents, we have started beating up on those that
are trying to protect us. What could go wrong?
Steadily, like a drumbeat, these tactics fail, demon-
strating themselves to be not a strategy at all, and the
statistics continue to show a rise in antisemitism.

Instead, we would do well to recall how we responded
to a critical moment in American Jewish history in the
early 20th century. In the aftermath of the Leo Frank
lynching in 1915, Jewish leaders formed what would
become the ADL by building a relationship with law
enforcement and the American legal and political
establishment. The ADL recognized that the best
strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long
term, in ways that would transcend and withstand the
political winds of change, was to embed in the police
and criminal justice system the idea that antisemitism
was their problem to defeat. These Jewish leaders
flipped the script of previous diasporic experiences; not
only did they become “insiders,” they made antisemi-
tism anathema to America itself. (And yes, it was the
Leo Frank incident that inspired “Parade,” the forth-
coming Broadway musical that last week attracted
white supremacist protesters.)
For Jews, the high-water mark of this strategy came in
the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh.

It was the low point in many ways of the American
Jewish experience, the most violent act against Jews
on American soil, but it was followed by a mourning
process that was shared across the greater Pittsburgh
community. The words of the Kaddish appeared above
the fold of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That is incon-
ceivable at most other times of Jewish oppression and
persecution. It tells the story of when we are successful
— when antisemitism is repudiated by the public.

A strategic plan to defeat antisemitism that must be
collectively embraced by American Jews would build
on this earlier success and invest in the infrastruc-
ture of American democracy as the framework for
Jewish thriving and surviving, and continue the historic
relationship-building that changed the Jews’ position in
America. It would stop the counterproductive interne-
cine and partisan battle that is undermining the possi-
bility of Jewish collective mobilization.

It means more investment, across partisan divides, in
See Kurtzer, page 12
letters Remaining Inclusive Online
I am a founding and continuing member of
Congregation Tifereth Israel of Lower Bucks County.

I am shocked at and appalled by the closing para-
graph of Jarrad Saffren’s Feb. 16 article entitled, “Are
Area Jews Returning to Synagogues Post-COVID?”,
which misrepresents both the policy and the practice
of our congregation.

The policy of our congregation is to be as inclusive
as possible. The practice is that online attendees
can participate in, but not lead, all parts of a Shabbat
or holiday service. Weekday minyanim (hybrid or
totally Zoom) are often led by online participants.

The congregation expects to offer hybrid and Zoom
services into the future.

Blythe Hinitz, Bensalem
A Message to Democrats
Jonathan Tobin hits the nail on the head with ‘’There’s
More to Rising Antisemitism Than Joe Rogan’s Rants”
(Feb. 22).

Part of the problem we face has nothing to do
with us. Antisemitism has always existed and always
springs back to life. Part of it is due to our own
inactions. Jews are a big part of the support for the Democratic
Party. The squad composed of the Omars, Tlaibs and
AOCs, among others, are virulently anti-Israel and
veiled antisemites and should be called out for their
hate by Jewish groups set up for that purpose. The
sad fact is that these groups, with some exceptions,
have been politicized and neutered in this role by
their unflagging loyalty to the Democratic Party.

The hard reality is antisemitism exists on both
sides of the political divide, and attacking one
side while ignoring its more virulent cousin on the
other, provides the latter with a green light to push
its venom. The message to Democrats should be
simple: Fight Jew hate with us or we’ll find someone
else who will. ■
Steve Heitner, Middle Island, New York
SEND US LETTERS
Letters should be related to articles that have run in the print
or online editions of the JE, and may be edited for space and
clarity prior to publication. Please include your first and last name,
as well your town/neighborhood of residence. Send letters to
letters@jewishexponent.com. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
13