Local Maryland History of "We Support Israel" synagogue signs

I posted a comment back in 2006 on a Washington Post magazine article entitled (print title differs from online title "A Beautiful Friendship?" to frustrate searches driving readers to pay for online subscriptions) "Is the Israel Lobby too Powerful?" by Glenn Frankel.  


The link doesn't display comments in 2017 here is what I posted from the printed copy I fortuitously kept.


I live in Bethesda, MD and have seen synagogues in Bethesda, Kensington, and two synagogues along University Blvd between Wheaton and 4 Corners (University Blvd and Colesville Rd complex intersection) hanging banners saying slogans like: "We support Israel in her battle for peace and security."  If a synagogue, church or mosque hung a sign with Palestine substituted for Israel the people in the religious institution would be inundated with letters, phone calls maybe even a few street protesters demanding "balance" or "clarification" for "Israeli perspectives" regarding what the meaning of the sign was- a two state solution or throw Jews in the sea.  However, simple unqualified support of Israel without expectations of "balance" or "clarification" for Palestinian perspectives can be given.  In politics a simpler message, unfortunately, is better received by the most voters and the Israeli side of the Middle East conflict debate has the simpler messages.  

The influence of the "Israel lobby" will be "too powerful" until a synagogue, church or mosque or other organization can post a similar banner of support for Palestine.  Such a banner, hung and accepted as free speech (with as realistic an assumption of audience agreement as the synagogues made) with as little challenge as the "We support Israel" banners receive would read "We support Palestine in her struggle for peace and security."  The signs would not publicly be called "unbalanced" or "anti-zionist/anti-semitic/anti-Israel" or "Israel-bashing" or "delegitimizing" leading to the sign being taken down because too many 'words of clarification/balance' for "Israeli perspectives" are demanded to make the sign a viable statement of a political message.  


Here is a copy-paste of a 2006 article (nothing to link to) describing how synagogues in one Washington D.C. Maryland suburban county came to display the signs above.  


Bob Samet, as written in a prior post, is a member of camera. org, copma. org and eyeonthepost. org all American supporters of far right Israeli Knesset coalition governments.  The signs may be "noncontroversial, nonpolitical," as the article says, but the  supporters of placing them, as well as the JCRC and its executive director Ron Halber for arranging discounted printing costs, are showing a rightward drift in 2006 away from supporting a sustainable final status peace and toward only secure borders for one side of a conflict.  Barbara Leber has worked with Bob Samet as well.  Leo Rennert has made his anti-equality, anti-justice and anti-peace views known by letters that eyeonthepost.org 
and American Thinker far right blog http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/wapo_shields_abbas_from_blame.html have posted. 



Say it with a banner ‹ campaign supports Israel


Wednesday, March 15, 2006



by Eric Fingerhut
Staff Writer

Many people might think it's obvious that synagogues support Israel, but Bob Samet says that doesn't mean they still shouldn't tell everyone.
"A husband should tell his wife he loves her. ... A parent should tell his child he loves her, and Jews should be telling Israel they love her," said the Potomac resident.
And that's the idea behind the Israel Banner Campaign.
Samet's synagogue, Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County in Bethesda, was the first to hang a banner in front of its building last month stating, "We Support Israel In Its Struggle For Peace And Security."
"These are serious times for Israel and we thought it was time to make a stronger statement," said Beth El's Rabbi William Rudolph.
Sixteen additional synagogues in Greater Washington either have hung outside their buildings or ordered similar 3-by-8-foot banners proclaiming their support for the Jewish state ‹ with the number of orders growing daily.
Seeing "Israel under assault" in recent months from the nuclear-seeking Iranians and others around the world, Samet said, convinced him of the need for such a campaign.
He was inspired by both the Soviet Jewry campaign of the 1970s and 1980s when synagogues posted signs with the names of refuseniks denied exit from the then Soviet Union, and the banners that his synagogue and many others have displayed decrying the genocide in Sudan.
"There's no reason we can't have support Israel signs on the lawn" as well, said Samet, a member of the local Coalition of Synagogue Israel Support Committees.
That coalition adopted the idea and brought it to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. The JCRC agreed to coordinate the effort, and has posted order forms from Rockville's Sign-A-Rama on its Web site.
The forms provide three banner options: "We Support Israel In Its Struggle For Peace And Security," "We Support Israel, A Democracy Working for Peace" and "(Name of Synagogue) Supports Israel." Institutions may also create their own message.
Anticipating a large number of orders, JCRC was able to negotiate a discount price of $130 ‹ from a normal cost of $170-$215 ‹ for the signs, excluding the cost of poles and other implements needed to hang the banners.
Coalition co-chair David Moses of Rockville called the campaign an effective "meld ... of voluntarism and professionalism," noting how the grassroots of the community came up with an idea and a local organization helped to implement the plan.
Calling the initiative a "proactive, pro-Israel campaign," JCRC executive director Ron Halber said that is a "very effective way of demonstrating to a lot of people that those institutions and their members stand behind Israel."
Halber also said he hopes to extend the campaign to "non-Jewish religious institutions" that support "Israel's quest for peace," such as churches.
Ensuring that the non-Jewish world knows about Jewish support for Israel is an important element of the banner campaign, said coalition co-chair Barbara Leber of Potomac.
She noted that some activists who have been fighting Christian churches' attempts to divest from Israel have found that "mainstream Protestant groups do not realize how important Israel is" to the Jewish people.
"We have to convince them," she said.
Samet noted that the banners are a "noncontroversial, nonpolitical" way to make that support known. So far, the list of synagogues that have signed up spans the denominational spectrum.
In a number of cases, the synagogues will be hanging the Israel banners alongside their "Save Darfur" banners.
Leo Rennert, a member of the coalition and Ohr Kodesh Congregation in Chevy Chase, sees symmetry in the dual message.
"One case is genocide," and the other is a response to the "genocidal threat" of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Bethesda resident.
Moses expects the campaign to grow in the coming weeks as synagogues start to hang their banners.
"Once we get it going, there's a lot of peer pressure," he said.