Twenty Chicagoans joined about 300 Jewish community leaders from around the country to urge lawmakers on Capitol Hill to take a tougher stance on Iran, which is on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons capability, according to recent intelligence estimates. The effort is part of the National Jewish Leadership Advocacy Day on Iran, coordinated by the National Inter-Agency Task Force on Iran, which includes the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, United Jewish Communities, and NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia.
“The galvanizing of community leadership for today’s event reflected an awareness among the leaders of the American Jewish community around the country as to the significance of this issue,” said JUF Executive Vice President Michael Kotzin, who participated in the lobbying effort. “At the same time we very much hope that today will be a catalyst for enlarging that awareness more broadly in the community and in the general population.”
Jewish and non-Jewish lay leaders, students, and JUF staff met with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Illinois Reps. Jerry Costello, Danny K. Davis, Luis Gutierrez, Bill Foster, Phil Hare, Debbie Halvorson, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Mark Kirk, Donald Manzullo, Mike Quigley, Peter Roskam, Aaron Schock and Jan Schakowsky to discuss upcoming House bills connected to Iran. Chicagoans comprised one of the largest groups at the fly-in. (Read a reaction piece by fly-in participant Laura Cusack, a student at North Park University in Chicago; a reaction piece by Paul Nelson, a student at Wheaton College, in Wheaton; and an interview with Fabian Flores of Aurora University, in Aurora.)
The majority of the Illinois delegation is supportive of efforts to curb Iran’s ability to acquire nuclear weapons. In particular, nearly the entire delegation signed on as co-sponsors of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009, which would strengthen the President’s authority to impose sanctions on any entity providing Iran with refined petroleum resources. Fourteen out of 19 Illinois legislators also are co-sponsoring the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009, which requires federal support for local and state governments’ and educational institutions’ divestment from entities investing more than $20 million in Iran’s energy sector.
Kotzin emphasized the importance of the issue and its obvious significance to members of Congress, who are overwhelmingly supporting efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear future.
Advocacy Day participants also met with Rep. Steny Hoyer, House majority leader; Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, which will handle legislation dealing with Iran sanctions; and the top two GOP lawmakers in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who was introduced by Chicago delegate Sarah Sechan, and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.). Amb. William J. Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Amb. Dennis Ross, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Central Region, National Security Council, spoke to the group about the administration’s view of Iran and the future course of action.
“The focus today is the nightmare of a nuclear Iran,” said UJC-Jewish Federations of North America President Joseph Kanfer, who spoke during the Day’s opening briefings. “We come here as a Jewish community, but we stand here as Americans.”
The Advocacy Day precedes a Sept. 24 rally in New York protesting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
“We are here today inspired by the spirit of solidarity and collaboration among the top echelons of Jewish leadership nationally,” said Joel Sprayregen, past chair of Chicago’s Jewish Community Relations Council, who also represented the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs at the fly-in. “The feeling of historical responsibility was aptly summed up by David Harris, the president of the American Jewish Committee, who reminded us that the Western world stands today in regard to the Iranian menace in about the same place that it stood regarding the Nazi menace in 1937.”
Illinois has been at the forefront of divestment from Iran. The Illinois General Assembly passed the nation’s second Iran divestment legislation in 2007. That law required the State Pension Board (SPB) to expunge from its portfolio direct investments in companies doing more than $20 million of business annually with Iran’s energy sector. The Illinois bill also requires foreign companies seeking business with the state to indicate if they are doing business with Iran’s energy sector. So far a total of $3.3 million has been “direct divested” from seven companies.
Sarah Sechan contributed to this report.
