"Among the Shnooks and Machers at AIPAC"-- Eli Lake/Bloomberg View

Among the Shnooks and Machers at AIPAC/ Bloomberg View
18 Mar 2, 2015 2:57 PM EST
By Eli Lake

There are many ways to understand the annual gathering in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). For some, it's evidence of a plot to undermine the national interest. For others, it's one of the great American rituals of political participation. But to really grasp how AIPAC's policy conference works, first familiarize yourself with the Yiddish word, "macher."

A macher is a big shot. He's a man with connections, a man who gets things done, a somebody in a world of wannabes. His opposite is the shnook, the guy who doesn't know how great the machers have it. The shnook is content with his unspecial treatment because he doesn't know any better. Most Americans want to be a macher and fear the prospect that they are just a shnook.

For the 16,000 pro-Israel activists milling about the Washington convention center this week, what separates the shnooks from the machers is the color of their lanyards, the poly-cotton ropes that affix one's badge to one's neck.

If you're just a delegate to the convention, the kind of guy who flies coach and uses his stored-up miles to book hotel rooms, you have a plain white lanyard. For the big dinner Monday night with all the senators and congressmen, your table is probably so far away from the stage that you have to squint at one of the many monitors in the banquet hall to see what's going on. The white lanyards have to wait in line, sometimes for nearly an hour, to get into the main hall to hear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or National Security Advisor Susan Rice address the crowd.

The experience is much different for the select few who wear the maroon lanyards. They are members of the "Minyan Club." A minyan in Judaism is a 10-man prayer group. At AIPAC, Minyan Club members are people who have given at least $100,000 in the last year. That puts them at the top of AIPAC's macher pyramid.


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http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-02/among-the-shnooks-and-machers-at-aipac