Associate Editor

The so-called big tent of world Jewry has many rooms, some reportedly in disrepair. The entire structure is buffeted by external forces. The inhabitants? As contentious as ever -- these being Jews, after all.

The American Jewish Committee, convening last week in Washington, D.C., for its annual meeting, conducted a tour of that metaphorical residence, home to a fractious and fractured people that may be undergoing its worst attack of existential angst in recent memory. --

But are Jews suffering in unison? Given the many deep ideological fissures, are Jews still one people? That question cropped up twice during the three-day conference that ended Friday. During Thursday's session, it was posed to a panel of three Jewish leaders, each from a different denomination.

Their answers varied, although the panelists did agree that strife and fragmentation have always been a part of Jewish life.

"The Jewish people have never been one," declared panelist Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor emeritus of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative movement's educational arm.

However splintered Jews may be, countered Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, "I still believe in a single Jewish people" that is "indivisible" and linked by "history."

Panelists also agreed on the importance of Jewish education, for both children and adults.

Until Jews from all streams formulate strong educational programs "on a scale that we have never seen before," Rabbi Saul Berman, the director of continuing rabbinic education at the Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in New York City, said, the community will "continue to see the fabric fray."

Justifiable fear -- and reasonable responses to it -- was the subject of an impassioned keynote speech given Wednesday night by Bernard-Henri Levy, the French author, polemicist, philosopher and "public intellectual," known throughout Europe simply by his initials, BHL.

Opening the conference, which took place at the Capital Hilton, Levy first informed the estimated 600 listeners that he is "more or less" the same age as the state of Israel.

"And never in my lifetime," he said, "have I felt that Israel and the Jews and all those who are faithful to Israel have been more vulnerable than they are today."

Hounded by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other forces bent on its destruction, demonization or delegitimization, Israel is the target of "pure, innate hatred," he said, that is all the more worrisome because it is on the verge of being nuclear-powered.

"Ayatollah-ism," he called it -- religious fanaticism amplified by "the atomic bomb," a challenge to the Jewish people that is so grave it effectively quashes traditional notions about Israel's supposed invincibility and other "comfortable ideas."

Underlying the threat, Levy said, is a mutant form of anti-Semitism whose component parts are virulent anti-Zionism; Holocaust denial; and "competition of victims," a doctrine that says some victims (Palestinians) deserve more sympathy than others (Israelis).

That confluence of pathologies can create "a real fire in the minds of some uneducated and simple people" that leaves no country, including the United States, immune, according to Levy.

He pointed to former President Jimmy Carter, a sometimes severe critic of the Jewish state, as a prime example of someone who reflexively buys into certain anti-Israel arguments. "He is growing old in a very bad way, a very sad way," Levy said of Carter, triggering a ripple of applause in the audience.

Left-wing ideologues are key transmitters of contemporary anti-Semitic tropes, emphasized Levy (himself a proud leftist), who wrote about this phenomenon in his latest book, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism, which was published in 2008.

What to do? Find strength in numbers, Levy implored. Israel and those who support the Jewish state, he explained, should form "real and strong" alliances with other groups that could provide strategic help while enhancing the moral credibility of the Jewish cause. "When you are vulnerable, you have to not be lonely," said Levy, who choreographed his remarks with dramatic arm and hand gestures.

Coalition partners, he explained, should include Christians (even though "some are not pure"), blacks (close allies with the Jews during the civil rights-era, "a golden age for Jews and Jewish values"), moderate Muslims (those who support secularism and human rights) and moderate Palestinians (those who support a peaceful, two-state arrangement with Israel).

Following Levy's remarks, a discussion ensued involving two panelists: Dov Zakheim, a former undersecretary of defense and now a vice president of Booze Allen Hamilton, Inc., and Einat Wilf, an Israeli writer and activist who served as a foreign policy adviser to Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Zakheim said although the external threats discussed by Levy are important, internal threats are also troubling, including an erosion in the number of individuals who self-identify as Jews as well as ideological balkanization in the Jewish community.

"If there is no common denominator, we will not prevail," said Zakheim, who compared internal challenges confronting the Jews to those posed by Iranian leader and veteran Jew-basher Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "If we don't retain our identity," he said, "he won't have anybody to yell at."

Picking up on the theme of continuity, Wilf said the Jewish community must figure out how to nurture a sense of Jewish self-identity among young people without resorting to fear tactics.

She instead recommended the use of creative outreach approaches, including the adoption of "mitzvot for the 21st century" that are neither religious nor nationalistic. "There's tremendous room for innovation there," she said. "Maybe we'll have some crazy ideas, but maybe we'll also have some pretty amazing ideas."

The need to continue fighting anti-Semitism dominated Thursday's evening reception, with Jason Kenney, Canada's minister of citizenship for immigration and multiculturalism, emphasizing his nation's solidarity with Israel and strong efforts to fight anti-Semitism and racism.

"We cannot afford to be silent or neutral when faced with threats" to democracy or to the state of Israel, Kenney said, noting that Canada is the only country on the United Nations Human Rights Council "to vote against resolutions that seek to scapegoat Israel."

"Canada believes those who threaten Israel also threaten Canada," he said to applause before some 1,000 people.

Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, also condemned anti-Semitism and Israel trashing, in particular at the United Nations.

It is wrong to legitimize "the message of hate" under the U.N. banner, he said, referring to his nation's decision to boycott last month's conference on racism, held in Geneva, and known as Durban II.

Discussing peace in the Middle East, Frattini said that Israel's "right to defend itself is strictly nonnegotiable" and that "the prospect of Iran acquiring military nuclear capability is not acceptable."

He also said that Israel must be fully invested in the peace process and that the Arab nations should play a constructive role as well.

Adam Kredo, WJW staff writer, and Debra Rubin, editor, contributed to this article.