Find passion to heal world, says activist
By Paul Haist
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Rabbi Steve Gutow has been stumping for social justice for a long time.
He started early as the president of his local Kids for Kennedy group when John Kennedy ran for the White House.
He became an attorney and then left his law practice in 1980 to set up the U.S. Southwest Section of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In 1990, he helped create and was the first director of the National Jewish Democratic Council.
A few years later he started a group in Texas called 21st Century Democrats to get Democrats to talk about economic and social issues.
Today, Gutow is the director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the national organization of local Community Relations Councils and the group that long has functioned as the representative voice of the organized American Jewish community in the field of Jewish community relations.
Gutow was in Portland Sept. 6 and 7 to meet with Jewish leaders, including members of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee.
He did not come to Portland, he said, with specific action items to urge on his local counterparts.
He came, instead, to share some of his passion and to motivate Jews here to address their issues here.
"The issue is less relevant than the idea that Jewish Community Relations Committees can be vehicles for social justice," said Gutow. "This is the crux of my soul."
He thinks Jews need to be reminded of their responsibility.
"We have lost some of our passion, our willingness to step up to the plate and do the things necessary to make the world a better place," he said.
He likes to imagine what America would be like "if there were tens of thousands of Jews walking the streets trying to make this a better country."
It would be good for the Jews too, says Gutow.
"I think our (Jewish) community suffers by its lessened presence in the public square."
Here again, the issue is less important than one's caring enough to make a commitment to healing the world, and that seems to be where Gutow wants to light a fire in the Jews he meets and works with.
"The key to grassroots organizing is allowing people to find the passion in their own heart for the issues in their own heart," he said.
One of the issues in Gutow's heart is the genocide in Darfur.
"If we walk away from a genocide, who are we?" he asked. "How do we justify (our inaction) to those who have helped us?"
The situation in Darfur is one of the top items on the JCPA national agenda. The group publishes a weekly newsletter called The Darfur Report (available online at www.jewishpublicaffairs.org) with news updates and suggestions for action.
Israel also tops the JCPA agenda.
Gutow credited the United Jewish Communities for providing JCPA with the funding necessary to start its Israel Advocacy Initiative.
IAI is a grassroots effort with national leadership provided by JCPA to promote Israel's interests and counter the efforts of Israel's opponents on the nation's campuses, on local opinion pages, among various constituencies and on key topics such as the Hamas election victory, Israeli disengagement, the problems raised by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israel divestment in the United States.
"We'll come in and help develop strategies," said Gutow, who otherwise stressed that it is the local CRCs and the communities for whom they work that carry out the strategies.
This brought him back to his central passion, motivating others to help make the world a better place.
The goal, said Gutow, is "to build a new sense of social justice through activism in community relations committees."