Since publishing my proposal for a new Jewish group to fight for freedom of speech called the Jewish Alliance for the First Amendment (JAFFA), the responses I've received have ranged from enthusiasm to scorn to bemusement to apathy. That's to be expected, because unfortunately I think that those of us that stand for free speech within America's Jewish communities and worldwide have a big deficit to make up. Many of our brothers and sisters have bought into what I called in 2019 the “comfortable trap of a good law". This means that we often sleepwalk into accepting intrusions into our privacy and civil liberties by taking for granted that a law meant to protect cannot also harm. In this installment of the newsletter I will answer some of the questions from the critics and the curious, as well as potential ones that I see down the line.
Q1: Why fight to preserve the 1st Amendment when in reality true freedom of speech cannot be achieved and will inevitably degenerate into social decay as we see today?
A: I often hear this from people all across the spectrum in one form or another. "Free speech" they say means different things to different people. So the answer is that I look at the 1A to be the baseline for freedom of speech that we have to defend. Clearly there are grey areas that have been found in terms of issues like intellectual property, obscenity, pornography, etc. and these should be debated. But in the meantime we are seeing these fringe issues being conflated with what were clearly core elements when the amendment was drafted that themselves are being threatened. Here are just some recent examples:
The court case of 303 Creative v. Elenis where a web designer is fighting for the right to refuse business from customers that want her to design webpages with LGBT themes. Here the government is using anti-discrimination statutes to violate the religious beliefs of a citizen through compelled speech.
This year the FBI raided the offices and employee residences of Project Veritas, a conservative leaning investigative reporting organization in New York. The raid was a result of a complaint that PV had received a stolen diary written by Ashley Biden. The FBI and Department of Justice's actions even caused the ACLU, while criticizing Veritas' methods, to issue a condemnation of the raid and its effects on freedom of the press.
In schools and universities across the nation speech codes are being issued such as one at Stanford University that lists "harmful words" including "Americans".
In each of these cases the body taking the action is looking to use its authority to limit the free speech of people under its authority. None of these examples may seem relevant to you, but if they are allowed to stand, what prevents the same restrictions from being applied to a Jewish web designer, news organization, or school? In one case Yeshiva University, the foremost Orthodox Jewish university in the US, is fighting in court for the right to deny accreditation to LGBT groups based on its religious character.
Q2: Wouldn't JAFFA just be another extra group meant for this purpose when there are already comparable ones?
A2: This is paraphrasing a respondent who asked why I simply don't join the Jews for the Protection of Firearm Ownership (JPFO). To be clear, the JPFO seems to be a pretty good organization, but its focus isn't on the 1st Amendment. Firearm ownership is something that I strongly support as well, and there can be areas of cooperation with groups that have a pro-liberty stance and endorse the 1A. So I see our role being in parallel to or overlapping with them rather than mutually exclusive.
Q3: Is this a partisan Republican or Libertarian group?
A3: Frankly speaking, there are two major parties in the United States and neither of them have a good record on freedom of speech. However, in the current political climate it would be disingenuous to deny that the Democrats are the greater threat to the 1st Amendment and other civil liberties. JAFFA should remain a non-partisan group, and the decision on whether to wade into real electoral races by issuing endorsements can't be taken lightly. Becoming a partisan group is what has ruined many organizations with proud legacies like the NAACP and ACLU that are now just co-opted pawns of their political side. That's something to be avoided as much as possible.
Q4: What is JAFFA’s stance on race/gender/immigration/labour issues?
A4: I would like JAFFA members to be able to hold their own opinions on these topics. The rule they have to abide by however is they cannot seek to bar others from holding contrary views and voicing them. For example, if a member is calling for an immigration moratorium, he cannot be sanctioned by the group on the grounds that this is a “xenophobic” or “racist” opinion. Also, if someone’s opinion is especially unpopular they have to deal with whatever ridicule and trolling comes with it.
Are there red lines? Yes, I am not willing to accept into the group people that a) seek to enable sexual or romantic relations between minors and adults b) call for or incite violence or c) support animal abuse and human trafficking. There also is the threat of entryism to worry about, when an organization is taken over by a group with completely different goals. Rather than restrict people from holding views, my hope is to prevent an enforced orthodoxy within JAFFA that contradicts the spirit of the 1st Amendment. This will not be an easy thing to accomplish.
Q5: Is JAFFA a religious organization, and does it belong to a certain religious denomination or viewpoint?
A5: No, we are a Jewish organization taking a stand on a secular issue in order to ensure the freedom of all Americans, religious or not. The major Jewish denominations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform) all have aspects to their belief system that reflect or conflict with the First Amendment.
Q6: If JAFFA is a Jewish organization is it also Zionist?
A6: The simple answer is no. The First Amendment is an American legal concept, and our task is to safeguard it for all Americans, whether Jewish or not. We would like other nations including Israel and its neighbours to embrace free speech policies too, but we’re not going to spend our time focusing on how to make that happen.
Q7: Who are YOU to put yourself forward to represent the free speech movement?
A7: This is a question each person should ask themselves if they want to be a part of JAFFA. The answer is very simple: Free speech is an inalienable right, and therefore I do not need any other qualification to defend it.