The creep of anti-Semitism onto college campuses

from The Daily, University of Washington    Full Article Links...HERE

By Nathan Taft The Daily | 0 comments

Earlier this year at UCLA, sophomore Rachel Beyda was initially denied a spot on the student council’s Judicial Board. Why?

Because she was Jewish. 

As an openly proud, Star-of-David-wearing Jew who goes to school on a college campus, this didn’t surprise me as much as I wish it had. 

I’ve attended the UW for four years now, I’ll be graduating at the end of this quarter, and during my time here I’ve faced more anti-Semitism than I’d like to admit. I’ve had TAs whose grading of my work drastically changed for the worse mid-quarter after I spoke out about the need for a Jewish State. I’ve gotten dirty looks around campus for displaying my Star of David prominently around my neck. I’ve had classmates quite literally cease interaction with me after discovering my Jewish heritage, no longer sitting near me during lectures and going out of their way to be in different groups during quiz sections.

I’m not writing this piece for sympathy or pity. This is not a woe is me, feel bad for the Jew story. No, I’m writing this because so few people understand the slow slide back into anti-Semitism that’s occurring, not just here, but around the world, and that’s a problem.

But first, let’s back up a bit.

After the Holocaust, rates of anti-Semitism dropped drastically; losing 6 million of your people can do that. But, as the decades passed, memories faded and anti-Semitism began to thrive once more. 

In France, Jews make up less than 1 percent of the population, but are targeted by 51 percent of all racially motivated attacks. All across Europe, Jews face murder, rape, beatings, and harassment for simply being Jewish. Chants of “Jews to the gas,” “dirty Jew,” and “death to the Jews,” are no longer rare, being heard at riots, marches, and even soccer games in multiple cities throughout Europe. Sometimes, the leaders of these groups claim they’re demonstrating against Israel, not Jews, sometimes they don’t. If you’re being honest, it doesn’t really matter one way or another.

Here in the United States, this resurgence of anti-Semitism is less widespread, being mostly limited to college campuses, and is usually far more subtle. Disdain for and discrimination against Jews is rarely out in the open like in the case of Beyda. Instead, people like to hide behind anti-Israel rhetoric to justify their bigotry.

Now, that’s not to say all anti-Israel statements are anti-Semitic; far from it. I’m among the first to be critical of some of Israel’s policies, for good reason. Israel recently re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu, someone who has said he is outright opposed to a two-state solution with the Palestinians. That’s despicable. Palestinians have just as much of a right to a state as Israelis do, and to ever truly achieve peace, both peoples must have a country to call their own.

But oftentimes, when people on campus see my Star of David or find out that I’m Jewish, I’ve become the target for their frustration and anger with the State of Israel’s actions. Many will never admit it, but simply by being Jewish, I’ve become their enemy. 

That’s not right. Maybe if I was a hardcore religious Zionist — I’m not — who believes the Palestinians should be forcibly and violently removed from Gaza and the West Bank — I don’t — I could understand that reaction. 

But that’s not what’s going on, and that’s not the viewpoint of the vast majority of American Jews. Yet, some people see my Star of David and brand me as someone toxic, someone worthy of their disdain and vitriol.

That’s not being anti-Israel. That’s being anti-Semitic. And anyone who says otherwise simply isn’t being honest.

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The Anti-Israel Intifada on the American Campus

from SPME April 8,2015 Full Article Links ...HERE

NOTE: Outraged? Go to Connecticut College and register a complaint. Sign petitions. Get angry.

Andrew Pessin, Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College, is the latest casualty in the campus-based culture wars. Dr. Pessin is a well-liked and much published professor, self-described as the “only Jewish professor on campus who openly advocates for Israel.” And now, for remarks made during last summer’s Gaza war, he faces an attack from Palestinian supporters seeking to silence pro-Israel stances on campus.

Pessin tells Breitbart News he believes he was set up by “a Muslim student and an Islamic Studies colleague” who worked in concert. They dug up one of Professor Pessin’s Facebook entries, one he posted during the August 2014 war in Gaza, the war in which Israeli soldiers uncovered and destroyed countless underground terror-tunnels which opened into Israel and were to be used in a mass attack against Israeli civilians. Referring to a leadership that purposely exposed its own civilians to death merely for propaganda purposes, and whose holy warriors attacked mainly Israeli civilians, Pessin compared this leadership to a “rabid pit bull.”

One student, Lamiya Khandaker, whose parents are from Bangladesh and who is also the Chair of Diversity and Equity for the campus’s Student Government Association, wrote to Professor Pessin. He immediately clarified that he was referring to the Hamas leadership and ideology, not to Palestinians; and, upon the advice of the administration, he apologized to Khandaker and deleted the post. Too late, too little.

A firestorm ensued. Students wrote letters and the student newspaper, The College Voice, published them (without reaching out to Pessin). An online petition was launched, calling upon the university to disassociate itself from Pessin’s “racism,” and on April 1stthe university canceled classes so all students could attend a “mandatory series of events” for a campus-wide conversation on racism, equity, and inclusion.

Connecticut College now has the same kind of Brownshirt-style bullies whom I first encountered back in 2003. In the name of “anti-racism,” they condemn true intellectual dissent and truth-telling as crimes. Something similar (although different in style) happened at Yale when, in 2011, the university ended Dr. Charles Small’s very successful program: the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism. There, too, a pro-Palestinian student operative, mentored by a prominent Islamist professor, orchestrated a campaign.

Professor Pessin has taken a medical leave of absence due to the “stress” caused by his being publicly defamed and condemned by both faculty and students.

MORE TO READ:


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Jews, Arabs and the game we play

from the Times of Israel April 8, 2015 Full Article Links HERE

I've  never been a huge sports fan.

I’ve never really followed any professional sport. And football? As a Canadian, soccer was never really on anyone’s mind, until of course David Beckham brought it, along with his family, to North America.

What then caused me to watch, scream and shout, jump for joy and cheer on the Wales national team during the 2016 European qualifier in Israel?

Well, it had something to do with the fact that I knew I would be meeting them all the following day in a more important context.

And so, I watched them again, the very next morning, as they got off their bus.

I watched as they slowly strolled, seemingly tired from the previous day’s victory, onto the football pitch in Haifa.

I watched as they crossed the perfectly manicured lawn, exploring the Carmel Mountains on the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.

And, I watched their eyes light up as they approached our Jewish, Arab and Druze children — all sitting perfectly still, clearly eager and anxious as their heroes finally come to greet them.

With all the anticipation, the hour that Gareth Bale and his team mates spent on the field in Haifa, passing the ball to Arab and Jewish Israeli children, was more than your average kick about.   NOTE: Joyful and hopeful... read the rest of this HERE

Read more: Jews, Arabs and the game we play | Rachel Lasry Zahavi | The Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jews-arabs-and-the-game-we-play/#ixzz3Wudp7nl4
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Anti-Semitism on US college campuses, educating pro-Israel Americans and marking the Shoah

in the Jerusalem Post April 5, 2015 by Eric Mandel... Full Article Links HERE

Last week I was privileged to speak to two very different audiences about the Middle East and Israel.

The first talk was at Purchase College in Westchester County, New York. I had been invited as part of my college speaking tour on the Middle East which brought me to many universities in the Northeast, i.e. Harvard, Cornell, Brown, SUNY Oneonta SUNY Binghamton and more. The first scheduled speaking date was postponed because of a snowstorm. Coincidentally, a week before the rescheduled talk, the campus was defaced with anti-Semitic and racist graffiti including swastikas and a noose.

There is a rash of anti-Semitism now sweeping college campuses. I know this because my organization, Middle East Political and Information Network (MEPIN), is continually being asked to sign letters to college presidents throughout the country responding to the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents, insisting that universities maintain a safe environment for Jewish students.

I was told that even before this anti-Semitic incident, the topic of my speech had created a controversy on campus, especially among a growing anti-Israel movement, and that I should be prepared to receive a hostile reception. The anti-Israel group did ask some provocative questions during my talk, but to their credit they choose not to interrupt the talk or intimidate Jewish students as other anti-Israel groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine have done. Perhaps the police presence had something to do with it.   NOTE: Great Article. Keep reading HERE

"On the college campus, our kids are besieged by a growing plague of anti-Zionism in the name of political correctness and anti-colonialism."

Don’t Blame Obama for Data on Israel’s Nukes

from Barron's On Line April 3, 2015 by Jim McTague Full Article Links HERE

Delete this from the right wing’s list of Obama outrages: The president did not release Israel’s atomic-bomb secret to the public in a fit of pique over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 3 speech to congressional Republicans.

Obama’s 24/7 vilifiers claimed this to be the case as late as last week. They said he had declassified a 1987 Pentagon report titled, “Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations,” which establishes that Israel has had nukes for decades. They ignored key facts to assure that the story would fit their hypothesis.

The mud-slinging created quite a hullabaloo along Pennsylvania Avenue. As the Washington Examiner reported on March 26, “Three years after a researcher filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a Department of Defense report discussing Israel’s nuclear weapon capabilities, the Obama administration released the document in what has been called an unprecedented acknowledgment of the heretofore secret arsenal protecting the Middle Eastern nation.” The paper added, “The release nearly coincided with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly controversial address to Congress earlier this month, raising questions as to why the Pentagon suddenly complied with a 2012 FOIA request that had become the subject of a lawsuit.”

The Weekly Standard wrote on March 26 that the declassification was a “serious breach of decades’ old understandings” and added that Israel never admitted to having nuclear weapons: “To do so might spark a regional nuclear arms race, and eventual nuclear confrontation.”

In The Hill newspaper on Thursday, Herbert London of the London Center for Policy Research wrote, “With Iran’s nuclear talks soon unfolding into an accord, the declassification will prove to be exceedingly awkward for Israel. It may well be that if the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear capability is called for, why not Israel’s program? Is the Obama team trying to establish equivalency between Tehran and Jerusalem?”

ALAS, ALL OF THE SPECULATION is based on falsehoods. Obama had no hand in the release—and the report wasn’t classified. In January, Federal Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington ordered the Defense Department to release the report by Feb. 12, in response to the FOIA suit by Grant Smith, head of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a small policy-research and education organization highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel. The timing of the judge’s decision was purely coincidental.  NOTE: Much more to read, please click HERE to keep reading

Great Source of Passover Information, fun, more

http://www.jr.co.il/videos/passover-videos.htm

Another Oldie but Goodie - Passover Rhapsody

Introducing JINO Magazine!

from Elder of Ziyon Full Article Links: HERE