“We were not ready for this.”
With those sobering words, Dr. David Elcott opened his presentations during his visit to Tidewater earlier this month as part of the Konikoff Center for Learning. He spoke to students, faculty, and community at Virginia Wesleyan, members of United Jewish Federation of Tidewater’s Holocaust Commission and Jewish Community Relations Council, and other groups.
The author of Faith, Nationalism, and the Future of Liberal Democracy, Elcott is the Taub Professor of Practice in Public Service and Leadership at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University and director of the Advocacy and Political Action specialization. He is trained in political psychology and Middle East affairs and Judaic studies.
“We were not ready,” Elcott said, for “the world in which we are being asked in a variety of ways to take leadership roles – both in defending the Jewish people and standing up for the principles and values which have animated the Jewish community in America for many, many decades.”
Elcott took his audiences through a crash course of the difference between Liberal Democracy versus Populist Democracy. The word, “liberal” in Liberal Democracy does not reflect political leaning.
Liberal democracy emphasizes the separation of powers – a system of checks and balances between branches of government, recognizing the rights of the minority.
Populism promises democracy of, by and for the majority.
With the United States and other countries leaning toward Populist Democracy, it is important to understand the ramifications – as American citizens, and particularly as Jewish citizens, he urged.
Saying he does not ask rhetorical questions, Elcott asked one group their feelings on the detention and green card revocation of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who had been a student leader of the anti-Israel movement.
The responses, from various perspectives, including from some who hold legal expertise, were both in favor and opposed to Khalil’s deportation – a clear example of the division of thought in today’s America, and within the Jewish community.
Elcott said he prefers to “wrap his presentations up, like with a ribbon,” but at this time, he can’t. His message: “Talk about issues, engage in conversations, reach out to others.
“We need citizens,” he said, “who take their civic role seriously.”
