Jewish College Students: Stop Whining and Grow Some! You have to save yourselves, for G-d’s sake! DOV FISCHER

 

Jewish College Students:
Stop Whining and Grow Some!
You have to save yourselves, for G-d’s sake!

DOV FISCHER
October 29, 2023, 10:35 PM

I told it to my four-year-old kids, then when they were seven and nine and fourteen and eighteen and twenty-plus. It was a mantra that my Dad, of blessed memory, told me: “Life is not a bowl of cherries. So stop whining!”

Stop whining, O Jewish college students of America. Stop your incessant whining. Your complaining and kvetching. Stop whining. (READ MORE from Dov Fischer: Biden Loves Israel to Death)
 

You were reared by rich, comfortable, Long Island and Westchester liberals to be liberals and woke. They had abandoned the Judaism of their parents and grandparents, and now had nothing Judaic to offer you. You attended reform temples where you learned nothing Judaic of substance. You learned no Rashi, no Talmud, no Rambam. All you know is that, by happenstance, you were born Jewish just as others, by happenstance, are born left-handed.

Stop marching to the showers like lambs. This is not Auschwitz; it’s Harvard Yard.

The mainstream Orthodox Jews among your generation, the students of Torah and Mishneh and Halakha (Judaic law), have gone to other colleges and advanced yeshivas where Jew-haters do not hold court. But you, the children of the liberals who advanced to be progressive and woke, chose Harvard and Columbia and University of Pennsylvania in an era when all your professors are either woke Jews or non-Jews. They all hate Israel. They all hate observant Jews. Everyone knows this.
 

Fools: There is no room for Jews in DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Even as White Supremacists on the Crazy Right say Jews are not White, the reality is, O Jews, you are not Black. You are not Hispanic, even those of you born and reared in Latin and South America, because you are Jews.
 

You are not Asian. You are Jews. You are not from India, O Jews, like Kamala and Ramaswamy. Even if you win a thousand national spelling bees, you will not ever be of India, O Jews. You do not fit in. You are not Native American, O Jews. Not even in the case of the Jewish mother who goes searching for her long-lost son and finds him in an Indian reservation. She finds he is happy. “Marvin, what are you doing here?” she asks. “Mom, I became an Indian. This is my bride, Floating Feather. This is her father, Flying Eagle. This is her mother, Running Lamb.” The father-in-law extends his hand to Marvin’s mother and asks: “Am much pleased to meet you, and what is your name?” She responds: “Sitting Shiva.”
 

You don’t fit in with DEI, O foolish left-wing college Jews. Not Black. Not Puerto Rican. Not American Indian. Not Spelling Bee Indian. Not Asian. And G-d knows not Arab Muslim. None of the DEI Chosen People. Even the homosexuals among you do not fit in. One after another LMNOPQ association has voted its endorsement of Hamas-ISIS, the Arab Muslims who throw gay Arabs off rooftops. None of them wants you.

   

At your parents’ behest, you ran from your roots, foolish liberal Jews, fleeing the anti-Semitism you feared would come from the right because anti-Semitism so often indeed comes from the extreme right. You thought, having abandoned your G-d and His Torah, that you would find succor among the left and the progressives and the Woke because they care about everyone. They care about the climate and the homeless, everyone. So you all became variations on George Soros and Bernie Sanders and Ben & Jerry — fleeing your heritage. “Yeah, I’m Jewish. But not really. I eat pork. I vote for Bernie. The Squad speaks for me. I’m for Palestine. I am woke. I oppose climate change. I fit in here at Harvard / Yale / U. of Penn / Columbia.”
 

No, you don’t. You never did. You never will. You know that Greta Thunberg? Guess what, O liberal progressive woke Ivy League Jews? That little snot also supports Hamas-ISIS.
 

No one respects people who deny who they are. It never works. You should learn about the Soviet Union, a hell that existed once upon a time, and now is dead as a doorknob. Many foolish apostate Jews — people like you — thought that was their ticket to fleeing the endless murderous Tsarist pogroms. So these Jews — like Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, Karl Radek, and Leon Trotsky — embraced Communism. (READ MORE: Israel’s Ground Incursion Won’t Look Pretty, but Let It Be)

You know what happened to them, O Jews of Harvard and Columbia? The first three were arrested, forced to sign confessions after weeks of being kept sleepless, then were put on trial in the middle of the night with their signed confessions read, and then were shot in rooms that had shower heads to quickly wash their blood down the drain, one by one. Trotsky hid in Mexico, so Stalin sent someone to slam a hatchet into his head. Trotsky was axed from the Communist party.
 

       

So stop whining. “Mommy, they hate us! Arab Muslims and all our friends are turning on us! They are cheering for the Hamas-ISIS butchers who slaughtered peace activists.” Hamas began by slaughtering 270 peace activists, butchering and raping and beheading peace activists at an all-night Trance Rave music festival, while more authentically committed Jews in Israel were in synagogue observing Shabbat and Shmini Atzeret. “Mommy, the Hamas-ISIS terrorists slaughtered families, murdered children, as many as 40 babies in a kibbutz, then cut off their baby heads, set their baby corpses on fire, burned others, cut off limbs, then photo’d and video’d all of it, as the Nazis had documented their atrocities. And all the students here support that, Mommy. And, Mommy, now they are chanting ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must Be Free’ — meaning no more Israel because Israel is the only thing that stands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”
 

“Mommy, I’m scared. I don’t feel safe here. Mommy, I don’t know what to do. You always taught me that, as liberals, we can count on people feeling sorry for us. You taught us to worship the victims. You taught us victimology. The only thing Jewish you ever taught us about was not the Torah but the Holocaust. But how come no one here is standing with us as the victims, Mommy?”

Stop your damn whining, O coddled and over-protected Ivy League Jews! Grow up. Instead of being Woke, the real world invites you to awake.
 

  

The campuses now are flooded with Arab Muslims imported as full-tuition-paying exchange students from foreign lands that hate and despise America, the countries that blew up the World Trade Center or cheered it. They dominate the Middle Eastern Studies departments because the Saudis and their ilk put up the money to fund them. The few Jews who teach in Middle Eastern or even “Jewish Studies” must prove they are anti-Israel to get tenure. The anti-Israel petitions are filled with Jewish signers, all professors of Middle Eastern and Jewish Studies. Hate for Israel is their ticket to tenure.

The Left distinguishes between bad rape and good rape. Hamas-ISIS is good Woke rape. Rape women who want peace. #MeToo.

I went to Columbia University a bit ago. Not only did I attend, but I got the undergraduate student body to elect me to represent the entire college in the University Senate from 1974-1976. Look it up. I, a politically hard-conservative Orthodox Jew with yarmulka and tzitzit, was the elected representative of all Columbia College students. You know how I did it? By being a proud Jew. I was known on campus. No one dared mess with me as I led Jews on campus to make Jewish demands. At the time, Pepsi was dealing only with Arab countries, and essentially boycotting Israel, while they also were dealing with the Soviet Union that persecuted Jews and would not let them leave. At the time, Coca Cola famously was marketing in Israel. So we demanded that Columbia end its contract with Pepsi and replace them with Coke. We won.
 

  

 
We demanded days off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — and we got it. We demanded that Columbia end all academic exchange programs with the Soviets until Prof. Vitali Rubin, some Jew who taught Chinese, was freed from the USSR. Columbia responded that they are not going to end an entire academic exchange program just for one Jew. So things happened on campus and Columbia ended its exchange program with the Russians. A year later Vitali Rubin was in Israel, and we allowed the exchange program to resume.

So stop your despicable whining. You are a disgrace and a shame to Jews like my friends and me who, for two thousand years, never had life as good and as privileged as you have it. They were getting butchered in Kishinev,  Kiev, and Odessa in their meager hamlets. They were burned at the stake during the Inquisition. The Crusaders broke into their homes and treated them as Hamas-ISIS does. And you are whining that 32 Muslim and Indonesian and Pakistani and Black Student groups sign a statement hating Israel and loving Hamas-ISIS? That is what they are.
 

    

 

Grow up. They cheer the subhumans who cut off limbs, beheaded, and burned even children and babies. The Left distinguishes between bad rape and good rape. Hamas-ISIS is good Woke rape. Rape women who want peace. #MeToo.

So, O Jews of campuses, stop whining. If they chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free!” then gather a hundred of you and chant “From the River to the Sea, Yis-Ra-El Will Be Free!” If they chant for a “Palestine” that is a fraud because there are no “Palestinians.” But then you chant for Israel. Chant for Israel. And really get them angry by singing “G-d Bless America.” (READ MORE: Patiently Waiting for Israel’s Ground Invasion to Crush Hamas)
 

  


 

As Woke leftists, you have been taught to whine, to seek safe spaces, to cringe at microaggressions. But whining will do no good. It never does. Get out there and affirm you are Jews. Affirm Israel’s right to live, even if it must kill 100,000 Gazans as collateral damage to exterminating Hamas-ISIS. Accept that the DEI Woke have no room for you.

Stop waiting to be saved by off-campus organizations. You have to save yourselves, for G-d’s sakes! Christians will respect you for it. Many will join you. You don’t have to let a handful of foreign students — who do not even belong in America — along with a bunch of Jewish self-hating apostates, beat you down. There are more of you than them. Stop marching to the showers like lambs. This is not Auschwitz; it’s Harvard Yard.

Stop whining. Fight back.

 

Publish the Names of Students and Professors Who Support Hamas Lynching and Rapes by Alan M. Dershowitz

 

• Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies.

• The students who anonymously vote to support Hamas' recent attacks need not be fearful of anything but disdain and criticism. They should be willing to subject themselves to the marketplace of ideas. They should not resort to cowardly hiding behind the names of prominent organizations such as "Amnesty International at Harvard" -- one of the groups that said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all" the massacres and rapes.

• Fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed.

• Some students who belong to these organizations argue that they do not personally support Hamas' recent barbarities. They are free to say so and to dissociate themselves from the groups they voluntarily joined. Silence in this context is acquiescence. So is hiding behind anonymity.

• Today, too many students are judged by their "identity." Identity politics has replaced meritocracy.

• Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn't censorship; it is right speech, and transparency.

Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies. Pictured: Pro-Hamas demonstrators in front of United Nations headquarters in New York on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images)

Student groups at many elite universities -- including Harvard, Yale and Columbia, CUNY -- have come out in support of Hamas at a time when its terrorists have raped, murdered and kidnapped women, toddlers, the elderly and other civilians, and have reportedly beheaded babies. The immoral groups that support such atrocities are composed of both students and faculty members. Many of these individuals hide behind their organizations' names and refuse to identify themselves. They do not want to be held accountable in the court of public opinion for their own despicable views.

The open marketplace of ideas, which I support, allows students to hold and express these views, but it also requires transparency so that the rest of us can judge them, hold them accountable and debate them.

There are, of course, rare occasions where anonymity is essential. For example, during the civil rights period of the 1960's, identifying members of civil rights groups endangered their lives. There is, however, no such fear here. Groups that oppose Hamas have not been known to advocate violence against those who support it. To the contrary, it is pro-Israel advocates who have been threatened with and suffered from violence.

The students who anonymously vote to support Hamas' recent attacks need not be fearful of anything but disdain and criticism. They should be willing to subject themselves to the marketplace of ideas. They should not resort to cowardly hiding behind the names of prominent organizations such as "Amnesty International at Harvard" -- one of the groups that said they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all" the massacres and rapes. They should be prepared to defend these immoral views.

Some students who belong to these organizations argue that they do not personally support Hamas' recent barbarities. They are free to say so and to dissociate themselves from the groups they voluntarily joined. Silence in this context is acquiescence. So is hiding behind anonymity.

Fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed. Teachers should not grade students based on their views. That is why anonymous grading is widely employed at universities.

As a university professor for 50 years, I would not grade down a student because she supported Hamas atrocities. Nor would I befriend or employ such a student. Freedom of speech is not freedom from being held accountable for one's speech. It is interesting that most of the counter-petitions protesting Hamas's activities contain the names of students and faculty, but that is far less true of petitions that support Hamas's atrocities. That is understandable because there is no reasonable defense for what Hamas has done. Those who support Hamas should be ashamed and shamed, and those who oppose Hamas should be praised. That, too, is part of the marketplace of ideas.

Today, too many students are judged by their "identity." Identity politics has replaced meritocracy. Being judged by one's support or opposition to Hamas barbarity is more justifiable.

Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club were formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn't censorship; it is right speech, and transparency.

So let the names be published. Let the despicable students and faculty members who support Hamas stand up and defend their indefensible views, and let the marketplace of ideas decide who is right and who is wrong.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.

• Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook

​​​​​​​Winston & Strawn Axes Student Job Offer Over Israel Remarks By Lauren Berg

 Law360 (October 10, 2023, 10:44 PM EDT) -- Winston & Strawn LLP said Tuesday it has yanked a job offer to a former summer associate who the firm says distributed to the New York University School of Law Student Bar Association "inflammatory comments" about Hamas' recent attack on Israel.

The law student, who has been identified by the New York Post as Student Bar Association President Ryna Workman, made comments that are "profoundly in conflict with Winston & Strawn's values," the firm wrote in a statement posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

According to the Post's reporting, Workman, who uses they/them pronouns, wrote a message to the NYU Law Student Bar Association on Tuesday expressing "absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression" and that "Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life."

Workman's statement garnered swift backlash online, including from the nonprofit watchdog organization StopAntisemitism, which tweeted on Tuesday that Workman lost their job offer from Winston & Strawn after "penning a horrifying justification for the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jews in a school newsletter."

In its Tuesday statement about rescinding Workman's job offer, Winston & Strawn expressed its support for the firm's Jewish colleagues and their families, as well as everyone affected by the attack.

"Winston stands in solidarity with Israel's right to exist in peace and condemns Hamas and the violence and destruction it has ignited in the strongest terms possible," the firm wrote. "We look forward to continuing to work together to eradicate anti-Semitism in all forms and to the day when hatred, bigotry and violence against all people have been eliminated."

"Our strength lies in our unity, empathy and shared humanity," it said.

John Beckman, senior vice president for public affairs at NYU, on Tuesday distanced the university from Workman's statement to the bar association.

"Acts of terrorism are immoral," Beckman said in a statement on the school's website. "The indiscriminate killing of civilians and hostage-taking, including children and the elderly, is reprehensible."

"Blaming victims of terrorism for their own deaths is wrong," he added.

Workman, whose LinkedIn appears to have been deleted, could not be immediately contacted for comment Tuesday.

--Editing by Michael Watanabe.

Read more at: https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1731293?nl_pk=3c9ffba6-555a-4f0d-9e22-f065fcfa33a4&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=legalethics&utm_content=2023-10-11&read_main=1&nlsidx=0&nlaidx=0?copied=1

SFSU Student Paper Reports on Freedom Center Campus Posters “It exposes the truth about SJP’s ties to terrorism and challenges the SF State administration to defend speech that deviates from the typical anti-Israel narrative."

In a short, remarkably (particularly for San Francisco State University) neutral piece titled "Campus posters allege student group ties to terrorists," the school's student-run Golden Gate Express reported on the David Horowitz Freedom Center campus campaign to distribute posters on campus identifying student group connections to anti-Israel terrorism. The article is reposted below:

The David Horowitz Freedom Center distributed posters on campus today as part of a campaign criticizing Students for Justice in Palestine of being puppets for Hamas terrorists.

The posters, also posted on Stop the Jew Hatred on Campus website run by the Freedom Center, portray the SJP as servants to Hamas.

The campaign comes as part of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s fight against schools that provide “financial and institutional support” to student members of Students for Justice in Palestine and other capus organizations that “support the agendas of these terrorists and spread their propaganda lies,” according to the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s public statement. Both posters contain the hashtag #NoSupportForCampusTerrorists.

“Our poster campaign has a dual purpose,” said Freedom Center founder David Horowitz in a public statement. “It exposes the truth about SJP’s ties to anti-Israel terrorism and its glorification of terrorists like Rasmieh Odeh and it challenges the administration at San Francisco State to defend speech that deviates from the typical anti-Israel narrative that dominates on campus.”

The David Horowitz Freedom Center ranked SF State seventh in a “Top Ten College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment” list last Fall. The report accused the University of “continuing to promote SJP on their campuses while actively working to suppress speech that exposes the truth about SJP and its ties to terrorism.”

The website claims that the posters will be distributed at all 10 of the listed campuses including nearby University of California, Berkeley.

Horowitz Freedom Center Claims Credit for Posters Linking Campus Anti-Israel Groups to Hamas “Our goal is to expose the true motivations of these terrorist proxy-groups and challenge their genocidal propaganda.”

SWC'S CombatHateU APP to Fight Campus Anti-Semitism/Anti-Israel Harassment, Launched Today

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, along with Alpha Epsilon Pi International Fraternity leaders representing over 100,00 Jewish students and 185 campus chapters,

joined together at the Museum of Tolerance New York to launch the SWC's newest app,CombatHateU. 

CombatHateU is the Simon Wiesenthal Center's new cutting-edge app designed to empower Jewish students to instantaneously report and confront anti-Semitism, and extreme anti-Israel harassment, and intimidation tactics on college and university campuses.

Photo: Swastikas spray-painted on the front of Alpha Epsilon Pi's fraternity house at Emory University in Atlanta, just days ago.

The app will also share best practices and successes in defeating campus-based anti-Israel agendas and alert Jewish students of relevant breaking news impacting campuses.

"Anti-Semitic rhetoric on campuses has to stop. [We are] thrilled to be partners with the SWC, who recognized the power of the interent 20 years ago...and now

 20,000 members have a place to report anti-Semitic hate speech which has no place on campus," said Andy Borans, Executive Director AEPi who, along with Larry Leider, International President, (both pictured center) joined with SWC officials and AEPi members at the launch of CombatHateUat the MOTNY.

CombatHateU is the third in a series of special anti-hate apps developed by the Wiesenthal Center's Digital Terrorism and Hate Project that has been a trailblazer in exposing, monitoring and combating the abuse of online technologies by extremists at home and abroad. The Center's annual Digital Terrorism and Hate reports have been highlighted by US Congress and is an invaluable resource for law enforcement, intelligence, and community activists globally.
 

CombathateU app is now available through the Apple store:https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/view Software?id=914700052&mt=8  Twitter   @Combat_Hate_U  Google Play (for Android devices) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emergent_transmedia.combathatu

An Israeli Soldier to American Jews: Wake up!

As a young Israeli who had just completed five years of service in the IDF, I looked forward to my new job educating people in the Pacific Northwest about Israel. I was shocked, however, by the anti-Israel bigotry and hostility I encountered, especially in the greater Seattle area, Oregon, and Berkeley. I had been very liberal, a member of the leftist Zionist party, Meretz, but the anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel that I have seen in the U.S. has changed my outlook personally and politically.

This year, from January through May, I went to college campuses, high schools, and churches to tell people about the history of modern Israel, about my experience growing up in the Jewish state, and about my family. I also always spoke about my military service as an officer in an IDF COGAT unit that attends to the needs of Palestinian civilians who are not involved in the conflict and promotes Palestinian civil society. Each time I would speak and take questions for an hour or more. I have shared my personal story with over 16,000 people at many, many college campuses and high schools, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Washington, Seattle University and many others. Many of those to whom I spoke were supportive, friendly, and open to hearing about my Israel. But, sadly, far too many were not.

I was further shocked by how unaware the organized Jewish community is and how little they are actually doing to counter this rising anti-Semitism, which motivated me to write this article.When I served as a soldier in the West Bank, I got used to having ugly things said to me, but nothing prepared me for the misinformation, demonization of Israel, and the gut-wrenching, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hostility expressed by many students, professors, church members, and even some high school students right here in the Pacific Northwest.

This new form of bigotry against Israel has been called the “new anti-Semitism,” with “Israel” replacing “Jew” in traditional anti-Semitic imagery and canards, singling out and discriminating against the Jewish state, and denying the Jewish people alone the right to self-determination. The new anti-Semitism is packaged in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS), which claims to champion Palestinian rights though its real goal is to erode American support for Israel, discredit Jews who support Israel, and pave the way for eliminating the Jewish state. One of BDS’ central demands is the “complete right of return” for all the descendants of the original Palestinian refugees, subtle language that means the end of Israel as the Jewish homeland because it would turn Israel into a Palestinian-Arab majority state.

It is surprising that an extremist group like BDS is ever taken seriously, but BDS advocates have found receptive audiences in some circles. Their campaigns are well organized and in many cases, well financed. They have lobbied universities, corporations, food co-ops, churches, performing artists, labor unions, and other organizations to boycott Israel and companies that do business with Israel. But even if these groups don’t agree to treat Israel as a pariah state, the BDS activists manage to spread their anti-Israel misinformation, lies and prejudice simply by forcing a debate based on their false claims about Israel.

To give you a taste of the viciousness of the BDS attacks, let me cite just a few of the many shocking experiences I have had. At a BDS event in Portland, a professor from a Seattle university told the assembled crowd that the Jews of Israel have no national rights and should be forced out of the country. When I asked, “Where do you want them to go?” she calmly answered, “I don’t care. I don’t care if they don’t have any place else to go. They should not be there.” When I responded that she was calling for ethnic cleansing, both she and her supporters denied it. And during a presentation in Seattle, I spoke about my longing for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. When I was done, a woman in her 60’s stood up and yelled at me, “You are worse than the Nazis. You are just like the Nazi youth!” A number of times I was repeatedly accused of being a killer, though I have never hurt anyone in my life. On other occasions, anti-Israel activists called me a rapist. The claims go beyond being absurd – in one case, a professor asked me if I knew how many Palestinians have been raped by IDF forces. I answered that as far as I knew, none. She triumphantly responded that I was right, because, she said, “You IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won’t touch them.”

Such irrational accusations are symptomatic of dangerous anti-Semitism. Yet, alarmingly, most mainstream American Jews are completely oblivious to this ugly movement and the threat it poses. They seem to be asleep, unaware that this anti-Jewish bigotry is peddled on campuses, by speakers in high schools, churches, and communities, and is often deceptively camouflaged in the rhetoric of human rights.

The American Jewish community and its leaders are not providing a united front to combat this latest threat. Unfortunately, this repeats a pattern of Jewish communal groups failing to unite in a timely way to counter threats against us individually and as a community.

Shockingly, a small but very vocal number of Jews actively support BDS. They often belong to organizations that prominently include “Jewish” in their names, like Jewish Voice for Peace, to give cover to BDS and the anti-Semitism that animates it. A question that we, as a Jewish community must ask ourselves, is whether it is ever appropriate to include and accept Jews who support BDS and directly or indirectly advocate the ultimate elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.

I think it is not.

My experiences in America have changed me. I never expected to encounter such hatred and lies. I never believed that such anti-Semitism still existed, especially in the U.S. I never knew that the battlefield was not just Gaza, the West Bank, and hostile Middle Eastern countries wanting to destroy Israel and kill our citizens and soldiers. It is also here in America, where a battle must be waged against prejudice and lies.

I implore American Jews: do more.

Israel cannot fight this big battle alone. If you are affiliated with a Jewish organization, let it know you want it to actively, openly and unequivocally oppose the BDS campaign and those who support it. Inform yourself, your friends and families, by visiting websites of organizations like StandWithUs, Jewish Virtual Library, AIPAC, AJC and others that will update you and provide information about BDS and anti-Semitism.

I urge the organized Jewish community and its members to wake up and stand up for the Jewish state of Israel, and for all it represents, and for all it works to achieve.

STANDWITHUS: Open Letter to the UC Board of Regents Regarding the Nomination of Sadia Saifuddin

Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents
1111 Franklin St., 12th Floor
Oakland, CA 94607
E-mail:  Regentsoffice@ucop.edu


Dear Regents,

As an international Israel education organization, we urge you not to approve Sadia Saifuddin as student regent in 2014—2015 and instead select one of the other two students who were also nominated for this position.

While we understand that Ms. Saifuddin may be well qualified in many ways, we believe she is ill-suited to be student regent and that her appointment by the regents will send the wrong message to the wider UC community.

Ms. Saifuddin has instigated some of the bitterest controversies roiling our campuses. Even though resolutions calling for divestment from companies doing business with Israel had created bitter divisions in the past, Ms. Saifuddin nonetheless co-sponsored a similar resolution at UC Berkeley this spring. The resolution was filled with false or disputed accusations that defamed the Jewish state. Instead of considering the facts, positions, and feelings of the many students who opposed the bill and instead of seeking common ground, she added fuel to the fire of an already-divisive campus issue.

It is of great concern that Ms. Saifuddin has shown marked callousness about the concerns of a significant portion of the student body - the Jewish students. She co-signed a letter in July 2012 that denounced the UC campus climate report about Jewish students and even maligned the choice of a former ADL leader who was appointed to research and write the report. Instead of expressing concern that Jewish students reported feeling bullied and harassed by aggressive anti-Israel activities, the letter she co-signed simply dismissed and disparaged their experiences. The letter also defended activities by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Muslim Student Union (MSU), despite the fact that President Yudof himself had condemned some of their actions, including their effort to shout down and silence speakers presenting Israel's point of view.

Finally, Ms. Saifuddin authored and co-sponsored a resolution in March 2013 that named specific individuals and denounced them as Islamophobic, effectively seeking to discredit and silence them. It is worrisome that she defends free speech rights for those who share her political views but does not uphold that same right for others. In her resolution she claims that the “University of California is no place for hateful and inflammatory rhetoric and holds its students, faculty, staff, and affiliates to higher standards that promote a positive and inclusive campus climate,” yet she is unwilling to examine how her own resolutions and activities violate this principle.

While it would be an important milestone for a Muslim student to become the student regent, Ms. Saifuddin is an ill-advised choice because she promotes activities that marginalize a large group of students on campus, and she advances extremist positions. The boycott and divestment resolutions (the "BDS" movement) have been widely condemned, even by a wide range of some of Israel's harshest critics, as a new form of anti-Semitism. As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman observed, “criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction - out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East - is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest.” 

If you appoint a student who is prominently associated with the "BDS" movement, you would send a message normalizing and even rewarding the very activities that are greatly harming the campus environment.

We urge you to choose a more suitable student, one who will build instead of burn bridges and one who will join in the effort to restore reasonable and informed debate about contentious issues on the UC campuses.

Thank you,                                                                                                     

The Board and Staff of StandWithUs

STANDWITHUS: Nominee to Represent All University of California Students is Anti-Israel Extremist

This month, the UC Board of Regents will confirm Sadia Saifuddin as student regent for 2014-15.  The Regents, inter alia, set educational policy for the 10 UC universities and appoint their senior officers. If confirmed, Saifuddin would represent almost 200,000 UC students.

Saifuddin is believed to be the first Muslim student nominated as regent. Let there be no mistake: it is right and laudable that a person of the Muslim faith should represent undergraduate UC students.  But Saifuddin has chosen to align herself with radical organizations and as UC senator has promoted extremist and divisive agendas.  Her nomination therefore does a disservice not only to students from the moderate, mainstream American Muslim community but to the UC student body as a whole. 

Saifuddin has since a young age chosen to align herself with groups at the far right of the American Muslim community. She graduated from the Council on American Islamic Relations' (CAIR) Youth Leadership Program in  “public speaking, media relations and governmental activism” in 2008 and has maintained close ties to CAIR since.  Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and Congress' appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has repeatedly criticized CAIR for promoting radical Islam. The New York Times has reported that CAIR is largely funded by ultra-conservative Gulf regimes including Saudi-Arabia.  Sam Harris has called CAIR “an Islamist public relations firm posing as a civil-rights lobby.” The Anti-Defamation League has even accused CAIR of racism and tacit support of Hamas and Hezbollah. In fact, the FBI broke all of its ties with CAIR in 2009 for that reason.  Accordingly, only 11.5% of American Muslims say that CAIR represents them. Despite this, Saifuddin has maintained intimate ties with CAIR to this day.

As student Senator, Saifuddin sponsored anti-Israel Boycott Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) initiatives on campus. BDS, which seeks to isolate Israel through cultural, economic and academic boycotts, has been criticized across the political spectrum as a hateful and dishonest[1] means of bringing about Israel's destruction.  The Los Angeles City Council has forcefully condemned BDS and President Obama has pledged to oppose it. Ed Hussein of the Council on Foreign Relations has argued that BDS aims to hurt Israel rather than to help Palestinians.  Indeed, Omar Barghouti, the Qatari-Egyptian founder of BDS, has admitted BDS' opposition to Israel's very existence.  In fact, BDS measures of the kind that Saifuddin was promoting while senator may be illegal. A person having passionately advocated such radical and divisive policies as senator cannot be trusted to fairly represent all students as regent.

Most troubling, perhaps, is Saifuddin's reaction to UC Regents' efforts to improve campus climate and ensure that “students, regardless of their faith, encounter an atmosphere at the University of California that is conducive to their intellectual and personal growth.”  Those efforts resulted in large part from the toxic atmosphere generated by BDS-type activities that Saiffudin celebrated.  But in a strongly worded letter to UC President Mark Yudof, Saifuddin opposed the campus climate initiative for fear that it would impede anti-Israel activities. The letter was penned by CAIR, in Saifuddin's name.  

Saifuddin has tightly aligned herself with radical groups.  She has dedicated herself while senator to promoting extreme policies that have poisoned campus life for thousands and have been condemned as discriminatory. And she has opposed UC Regents' efforts to foster a more tolerant campus atmosphere because such efforts threaten anti-Israel propagandists.  Is there no more fitting a candidate to represent the diverse UC student body?

The Regents can be contacted at the following: 

Email: regentsoffice@ucop.edu
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY AND CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE REGENTS
1111 Franklin St., 12th floor
Oakland, CA 94607
fax: (510) 987-9224

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/contact.html

Cockroach Curses and Jew Hunting in California Colleges The players include several perfect archetypes, and the situation is a classic one: Anti-Israel students engage in "street theater," mimicking brutal, oppressive Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The victims, pro-Israel students, are traumatized and believe themselves unable to stand up for themselves.

Najib Hamideh and other Students for Justice in Palestine bar students entry to Claremont McKenna College cafeteria in "Israeli checkpoint street theater demonstration," March 4, 2013

Hyper-politicized college student programs dealing with the Middle East these days often end up as actual or virtual shoving matches between two ideological camps: those that support Israel and those that denounce her.  Questions about ideology — is Israel defending itself from terrorists or murdering innocent children — morph into questions about whether the Israel’s campus advocates, or Israel’s campus enemies, were the ones to curse, hit, shove, or obstruct, or the ones to lie about some or all of the above.

We saw this recently at Brooklyn College, where four Jewish pro-Israel students were booted from a speech sponsored by a public university on the demand of a single twenty-something advocate for economic and political warfare against Israel. That (non) Student for Justice in Palestine organizer had been given control of the event, the room where it took place, and the university’s entire security apparatus.

Alone among a raft of public security and university faculty and administration, this one man claimed the Jewish students had been disruptive and had to be, and were, removed.  The claims of allegedly aggressive Jews attempting to stifle debate and bar academic freedom become merged with claims of aggressive Israeli soldiers impeding innocents at Middle East checkpoints.

That story only fell apart, and the university was only forced to abandon its initial blame of the pro-Israel students — and to agree that they’d done nothing wrong — after a tape of the event surfaced that made it impossible to believe the version put out by the anti-Israel partisans. Only then did a university “investigation” follow, which concluded the Jewish students had been wrongfully ejected from the public event, which was a publicly funded call for the boycott of Israeli products.  Your tax dollars at work.

Another story is now unfolding in California, where another public attack on Israel precipitated contradictory accounts of improper conduct by Israel’s advocates and enemies.

Because what happened on the ground so quickly and so often becomes grist for the ideological mill of Israel’s enemies, it’s worth bearing down to determine as clearly as possible what really happened, why, and whether it provides any guidance for how to handle future events.  There will be many more.  This case is also instructive for seeing who rallies to which side, and why.

This is the first article in a series looking at a specific incident that took place at Claremont McKenna College in California, and how and whether it is possible to tease out what happened and why.

The players include several perfect archetypes, and the situation is a classic one:  Anti-Israel students engage in “street theater,” mimicking brutal, oppressive Israel Defense Forces soldiers. The victims, pro-Israel students, are traumatized and believe themselves unable to stand up for themselves.  In this case a pro-Israel student goes to an Israeli professor seeking his help.  The professor is annoyed by the street theater, is provoked by the anti-Israel students, and bad things happen, including claims by the anti-Israel students that their free speech rights were violated.

This article will lay out the basic facts, as best as they can be discerned. Subsequent articles will look at how each school made a determination about what happened, what evidence was made available, how much outside “information” played a role, and what, if anything, can be learned from this case.

PART ONE: MARCH 4, 2013

Jewish Israeli professor Yaron Raviv, walked up to a peaceful Students for Justice in Palestine “street theater mock Israeli checkpoint” demonstration at Claremont McKenna College.  The professor had been watching the demonstration for awhile. He then approached the demonstrators and told them they weren’t allowed to perform and they had to leave.  The professor then tried to get other school officials to shut down the pre-approved demonstration.

A kefiyah-clad Arab Palestinian student, Najib Hamideh, politely asked the professor to show his identification (it was after 5:00, and he was concerned about a visitor on campus without permission), the professor turns on him, calls him a “f[expletive deleted] little cockroach,” asked where the student goes to school, then says all students from that school are cockroaches.  The professor then showed the public safety officer his school ID, and then the professor left.

The word “cockroach” is a racial slur, according to the student and his advocates, either because it’s what Israelis call Arab Palestinians, or because “language gets meaning from context” and cockroach is a disgraceful, dehumanizing term, especially when used by a Jewish Israeli professor about an Arab Palestinian student.

That’s one version of an incident that took place at Claremont McKenna College on March 4. It’s the one told by the demonstrators, the Students for Justice in Palestine.

Here’s the other version, the one told by the professor:

A professor, Yaron Raviv, gets a call from a Jewish student asking for help because student protesters pretending to be thuggish IDF soldiers are blocking the cafeteria and intimidating anyone who wants to pass through, demanding other students first show their school ID cards.  The professor goes to investigate, sees students in camouflage standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the main entrance to the cafeteria, sees some other students handing out flyers, and sees students on the side crying.  When the students insist the professor show his ID, he refuses and goes inside, and  tells the dining hall manager that the students can protest but not block the entrance.

The dining hall manager tells the students to move, and initially they do, but as soon as the manager goes inside they get back into formation, shoulder to shoulder, in front of the entrance. The professor calls the public safety office and goes outside to speak with an officer. While the professor is walking, one of the students, Najib Hamideh, dressed like an Israeli soldier, leaves the demonstration.

The student gets in the professor’s face and says, “Who are you? Are you a faculty here? Or a visitor? Show me your ID. If you are a visitor you cannot be on campus ground after 5pm.” The professor goes up to the officer, to whom he shows his ID, the student sees it and says to the professor, “oh, you’re faculty!  I will hunt you down!”

With that, the professor, a Jewish Israeli, loses his cool and calls the student a “f[expletive deleted] little cockroach.”

The student gleefully responds: “oh, I’ve got you now!”

With that, the professor turns, goes over to the student who had originally sought his help, tells that student “the public safety officer will take over from now,” and walks away.

The versions diverge on several points: (1) did the demonstrators block the main entrance to the CMC cafeteria; (2) did the professor try to shut down a pre-approved, peaceful demonstration; (3) did the student say “I will hunt you down” before the professor called him a “f[expletive deleted little cockroach," if at all, and did the professor know that the student demonstrator was of Arab Palestinian heritage.

There have been several investigations of the incident.  One investigation was conducted by Claremont McKenna College, the school at which the demonstration and the incident at issue occurred and at which the professor, Yaron Raviv, is a faculty member.  A second investigation was conducted by Pitzer College, a member of the Claremont University 5 school Consortium.  Most of the students involved in the "Israeli checkpoint street theater demonstration" on March 4 were Pitzer students, and the one involved in the confrontation at issue, Najib Hamideh, is a Pitzer junior.

The school officials have been completely closed-mouthed, referring reporters to their respective communications officers.  The communications officers, in turn, refuse to say anything more than that they "stand by" the statement issued by each school upon the completion of their respective investigations.

And even more unfortunately, the investigations of the two schools concluded with conflicting factual findings, even though, presumably, the two schools were able to share any and all information, witnesses and documents, and both schools stated that they cooperated with each other.

The next article will look more closely at the different reviews and sets of findings, but the final review for Claremont McKenna found that: (1) Professor Raviv's language was inappropriate and unprofessional, but, given the context, did not constitute a violation of the school's harassment policy; (2) the SJP event was not in compliance with Claremont's Demonstrations Policy because the demonstrators blocked access to the cafeteria and impeded with students' freedom of movement; and (3) Prof. Raviv did not improperly interfere with or attempt to stop the event.

Pitzer College, however, found that (1) there was no violation of Claremont's Demonstrations Policy, and (2) the professor used inappropriate, insulting and hostile language against the student and there has not been a public apology.

Pitzer College's finding that the SJP students had not violated the demonstration policy nor done anything that was inappropriate because they moved each of the three times they were asked to do so.

Is there anyway to determine what actually happened? Is there a way to come to a conclusion about what is most likely to have occurred, one that isn't simply based on predilections for believing either a pro-Israel or a pro-Arab Palestinian point of view?

The different pieces of information, the veracity of those who testified or who are now talking about the incident and the bases for the differences in the findings of the two schools will be examined.  But there are many other issues that should be considered.

How did the Israeli professor become involved?  What is his background? Was he wise to intervene or, given the refusal of the pro-Israel students to speak up on his behalf after, according to him,even though he only became involved because they sought his help - that's worthy of attention.

How and why and what does it mean that a Jewish Pitzer professor has inserted himself into the incident, acting as an adviser and advocate for Hamideh.  That's worthy of attention.  Are his statements and revelations entirely trustworthy? What motivates him, how emblematic is he, who counters him on the other side?

What role did the film "5 Broken Cameras" play in this drama, and how is it playing out in other areas where it is shown?  The SJP students watched a screening of the film just a few hours after the street theater demonstration, the Jewish Pitzer professor talked quite a bit about the film's significance, at least one college student reporter was influenced by the film and its impact infiltrated the interview she conducted with Raviv, shortly after the incident.  The impact of this film on how the Arab-Israeli conflict is treated on campuses is another lens through which we will look.

To conclude this article, it is worth looking at a piece of objective evidence which puts into question one claim made by the student, and it is the basis for the allegation of racism against Prof. Raviv, something that he says has harmed him already.

Najib Hamideh claims that when Raviv called him a cockroach, that was a racial slur.  Dan Segal, an anthropology professor at Pitzer and someone who had been acting as an advocate for Hamideh, insists the term is racist, because, as he told The Jewish Press, "calling a Palestinian student a cockroach, in this racially charged atmosphere, was racist, because language takes its meaning in context."  Segal insisted that given that Raviv "is a staunch, uncritical defender of the state of Israel," his use of the word turns it into a dehumanizing and demeaning term.

But that argument only works at all if Raviv knew Hamideh was of Arab Palestinian descent.  Raviv insists he did not have any idea what Hamideh's racial heritage was.

Segal insists Raviv had to know.  Why? "Because," Segal told The Jewish Press, "the student identified as a Palestinian, he was at a pro-Palestinian event and he was wearing the scarf [keffiya].  Segal insisted, although he admitted not being present, that Hamideh was wearing a keffiya.

Raviv told The Jewish Press that Hamideh was definitely not wearing a keffiya.  How can he be so sure?

“I know he wasn’t wearing a keffiya, for sure, for two reasons.  One, the student was engaged in street theater pretending to be an IDF soldier, he was dressed as an IDF soldier, of course he was not wearing a keffiya.  The second reason is that Raviv saw Hamideh at the event, and “he was not wearing the scarf, the keffiya.”  A picture of Hamideh at the Israeli checkpoint demonstration is at the top of this article and below.

Najib Hamideh and other SJP students at Claremont McKenna College, after mock Israeli checkpoint demonstration, March 4, 2013

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About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law schools.