An Evening On H at the J Street Conference

I spent Sunday evening at the Grant Hyatt on H street at the first-ever J Street conference. The evening was the conference's kickoff event featuring 1200-1500 people sitting in a ballroom. After speeches from Jeremy Ben-Ami (J Street's executive director), Daniel Sokatch (the charismatic new CEO of the New Israel Fund) and some others, the attendees discussed their connection to Israel and pro-peace activism in small groups at our tables. The mood was positive but not ebullient, and the informal conversation-style gave the evening a more participatory feel than is usual for issue or policy conferences.

Wandering around in the lobby before the dessert reception, I bumped into a motley assortment of characters: an old friend in rabbinical school, the executive director of Uri L'tzedek (the ethical kashrut org), a college friend covering the conference for an online jewish magazine, fellow jstreeters from NY, a frum activist trying to talk folks on the Berkeley campus out of divestment, and the online director from the labor movement.

Looking at the parade of name tags, I recognized the last name "Tassini" on a middle-aged man walking by, but couldn't place it. A later Google search revealed him to be Jonathan Tassini, the New Yorker who challenged Hilary Clinton in the 2006 Senate primary (she was a first-term incumbent) over her vote for the Iraq war.

The number of people attending is very encouraging. The crowd is a mixture of middle aged and younger people, with a large number of kippot-wearing attendees and beards. There is a noticeable Israeli presence, and lots of journalists, who seem to be dressed more formally than the average conference-goer.