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Why is Hillel at Stanford supporting an Islamophobic group?

October 30, 2017 by sjpwest

The Stanford Israel Alliance recently invited Reservists on Duty, an organization of Israeli Defense Forces reserve soldiers infamous for its virulent Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, to present an event at Stanford Hillel last Monday, Oct. 16. This group of foreign soldiers tours U.S. college campuses with the explicit goal of opposing student activism for Palestinian rights.

Over the course of a week in May this year, members of Reservists on Duty engaged in a series of racist and Islamophobic attacks against Palestinian activists and allies at UC Irvine. These adult Israeli soldiers, in their verbal tirades against the group of students, repeatedly equated Islam with terrorism. They wore shirts that read, in Arabic, “Israel is the only candle in a region of darkness.” One soldier threatened a student in Arabic, saying, “You want me to stick it in you, don’t you?” They told a Jewish student demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinians to remove his kippah because he was not a real Jew. They recorded and videotaped students without permission and threatened to leak their personal information to Canary Mission, a website that aims to sabotage the careers of students and faculty who support Palestinian rights. One camera operator even physically assaulted multiple students, shoving one and knocking a protest sign into another’s face.

In the aftermath of these events, Reservists on Duty spearheaded a smear campaign against the brutalized students, claiming that they were the victims of anti-Semitic bigotry. Six organizations, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild and Palestine Legal, wrote a letter to the UC Irvine administration demanding that UC Irvine take action to protect Palestine-solidarity activists after these attacks.

It is deeply irresponsible for a Stanford student group to consider hosting a group of soldiers with this demonstrated history of violence on college campuses. Under pressure, the Stanford Israel Alliance canceled the original Reservists on Duty event last Sunday, Oct. 15. Yet, last Monday afternoon, Hillel released an email announcing that the event would be taking place at the Chabad House, another organization that serves the Jewish community at Stanford. Hillel endorsed the event in an email, referring to Chabad as Hillel’s “off-campus partner” and encouraging students to join Hillel Executive Director Rabbi Jessica Kirschner in attending the event.

Two of the Reservists from the UC Irvine delegation were present at the Chabad House. The speakers engaged in what has become normalized rhetoric in pro-Israel communities: lionizing Israel and its accomplishments and claiming that nonviolent movements to boycott Israel are anti-Semitic. Blatantly Islamophobic rhetoric prevailed without reproach. One of the reservist delegates, Dema Taya, claimed that Arab women who live in countries other than Israel “are afraid to talk, because maybe in this primitive ideology, her husband or her brother or her father doesn’t allow her to.” She described Israel, England, the United States and Canada as “the good civilization” with “the nice behavior” and claimed that the reason that majority-Arab countries do not have democracy is because “their government is also Arab.”

Hillel is a community center meant to serve the Jewish community at Stanford and be a welcoming space for all Stanford students. It is unacceptable for Hillel to promote and endorse a group known for its verbal and physical harassment of Arab and Muslim students and their allies. Hillel’s Rabbi Kirschner even admitted at the conclusion of the event that Hillel was aware of concerns for student safety around hosting Reservists on Duty. Still, she thought it was “wonderful” that the event happened and promised her support in hosting Reservists on Duty at Hillel in the future.

As Jews, it is particularly distressing that two major campus organizations that serve the Stanford Jewish community worked together to organize this event. We, Jewish Voice for Peace, demand that Stanford Hillel and Chabad issue a public apology to the Stanford community for actively endorsing a group that promotes Islamophobia, anti-Arab sentiment and hateful rhetoric that threatens and terrorizes our communities at Stanford and beyond.

— Jewish Voice for Peace

Posted in: News Tagged: islamophobia, jvp, reservists on duty, stanford

Interview with Tallie Ben-Daniel regarding dangers to speech and activism posed by UC Regents’ “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance”

January 11, 2016 by sjpwest

 

In this half-hour interview on KPFK Radio, hosts Estee Chandler and Nagwa Ibrahim talk to JVP Academic Advisory Council head Tallie Ben-Daniel about the UC Regents proposed, “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance,” the issues of transparency surrounding its writing, the problematic list of experts that have been consulted, and the problematic definition of anti-Semitism being considered. The interview also discusses the effect of speech policing on scholarship and activism at the UC, and explains the difference between principled criticism of Israeli state policies and anti-Semitism.

For more, please see the UC SJP position paper on this issue.

Posted in: Activism Tagged: anti-semitism, intolerance, jvp, regents

Jewish Voice for Peace Statement Opposing HR 35

August 29, 2012 by sjpwest

Jewish Voice for Peace Condemns CA Assembly Vote to Support Limiting Free Speech on UC Campuses 

Applauds few legislators who refused to vote for deceptive resolution meant to limit criticism of Israeli policies

[OAKLAND—August 29, 2012] Jewish Voice for Peace is appalled that the CA State Assembly passed a resolution yesterday which was presented as a broad condemnation of anti-Semitism on UC campuses but which goes far beyond that in supporting putting limits on the free speech of students, faculty and community-members who criticize Israeli policies. ( See “Anti-Semitism resolution hits anti-Israel protestors”, AP)

Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace Deputy Director: “This resolution wants the University of California system to treat Israel differently from virtually every other country in the world, including the United States, by claiming much criticism of Israeli policies is hate speech. If any legislator tried to introduced a similar resolution claiming criticism of Iran was anti-Muslim, or attacks on Utah were somehow anti-Mormon, they’d be laughed out of office. And rightly so. 

That’s one reason the Jewish community is completely divided on this issue —when the UC campus climate report on Jewish life referenced in the resolution made similar far-reaching recommendations to limit speech critical of Israel, the biggest pushback came from Jewish UC students, faculty and alum. The implications of limiting academic inquiry and free speech, even speech that makes some people uncomfortable, are deeply troubling. Just as alarming, this resolution cheapens the very serious charge of anti-Semitism.“

View full statement:

http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/jvp-statement-opposing-ca-assembly-vote-on-limiting-free-speech-at-uc

Posted in: Solidarity Tagged: hr 35, jvp

Jewish Voice for Peace asks President Yudof to table “biased” UC campus climate report

July 25, 2012 by sjpwest

JVP Asks UC President to Table Biased Report on Jewish Life on Campuses

[BERKELEY—July 25, 2012] Jewish Voice for Peace calls on University of California President Mark Yudof to table a recently released report on Jewish student campus climate and to disregard its controversial recommendations until a methodologically sound and even-handed report can be conducted.

The report, co-authored by Anti-Defamation League national education chairman Richard Barton and NAACP California president Alice Huffman, is coming under heavy criticism by a number of groups, including many Jewish students and faculty members, for poor methodology and bias.

Cecilie Surasky, Jewish Voice for Peace Deputy Director: “Rather than offering a genuine exploration of a range of Jewish student life issues—which we would support — the report reads like a blueprint for limiting pro-Palestinian activism and further marginalizing the growing numbers of students, many of them Jewish, who are critical of Israeli policies.”

Full Statement:

http://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/blog/jvp-asks-uc-president-to-table-biased-report-on-jewish-life-on-campuse

Posted in: Solidarity Tagged: campus climate, jvp, Yudof

Ad Hoc Jewish Committee Letter Criticizing Campus Climate Report

July 22, 2012 by sjpwest

** This is the initial letter sent to President Yudof on July 20, 2012. In addition to the 27 faculty and students who originally signed this letter, more than 2000 have added their signatures here: http://www.change.org/petitions/letter-to-pres-yudof-in-response-to-jewish-campus-climate-report

 

July 20, 2012

President Mark Yudof

University of California Office of the President
President@ucop.edu

 

Dear President Yudof:

We, the undersigned University of California undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, faculty and parents, write to you as members of the UC Jewish community who are deeply concerned and troubled by the Jewish Student Campus Climate Fact-Finding Team Report and Recommendations recently issued by Richard D. Barton and Alice Huffman. We share the commitment to “address[ing] challenges in enhancing and sustaining a tolerant, inclusive environment on each of the university’s 10 campuses” which your Advisory Council on Campus Climate, Culture and Inclusion aims to do. However, the report and recommendations it includes omit the experiences of many students and faculty in the Jewish community, grossly misrepresent educational initiatives focused on Israel and Palestine and political organizing in support of Palestinian rights, and threaten academic freedom on our campuses.

 

For these reasons we ask that you table the report and its problematic recommendations and in the future only consider recommendations derived from a demonstrably equitable and representative study of campus climate for all students at the University of California.

Listed below are some of the most problematic aspects of the report:

1. How did the authors decide with whom to speak?

On the first page of the report, the authors state that they visited six UC campuses where they met with undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, senior administrators, and representatives of off-campus Jewish organizations and on-campus non-Jewish organizations. That is the full extent of the methodological information the authors provide.

We believe that this report represents only a very partial view of Jewish people on UC campuses. The authors do not tell us how or why they chose the people with whom they met, who they met with, or whether the meetings were open to anyone, especially students, who wished to participate and, if so, if they were publicized as such, and what rationale guided their choices. At UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley, participation was by invitation-only, and a number of Jewish students who are publicly active and involved in campus Jewish life only learned of this report upon its publication.

Whose Jewish opinions did the authors include in this report, and why? Did the authors makes an effort to include students from left-wing groups on each campus in order to understand the divisions among Jews as well as the values and experiences of the left-leaning Jews? Did they make an effort to speak with the Jewish students who choose not to affiliate with traditional Jewish organizations? If not, why not?

2. Misrepresentation of Palestinian rights and anti-occupation movements on UC campuses.

Throughout the report, the authors portray student organizing on behalf of Palestinian rights and against the Israeli occupation as anti-Israel, carried out in bad faith, harmful to Jewish students and latently anti-Semitic. We believe this is a gross misrepresentation of the movements in which we are involved, which advocate for human rights for all peoples in the region. Criticizing the Israeli government and military are not inherently anti-Semitic acts.

There is a disconnect between the authors’ empirical findings and their exclusive focus on the feelings of students who advocate for Israeli policies. The authors claim that “the Jewish communities on the [UC] campuses are very diverse, making generalizations difficult” (page 2) and “this is especially true when it comes to the issue of Israel,” as some “Jewish students participate actively in pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist activities” (page 3). Yet when the authors speak of activism on the issue of Israel, they ignore those Jewish students’ experiences and instead only focus on the sense of “hostility” and “isolation” that the Israel-advocating students feel. This disconnect compromises the report and also shapes the misrepresentation of student organizing on campus. Many students who actively participate in organizing for Palestinian rights don’t see their political activism as “anti-Israel” or “anti-Zionist,” as the report claims; in fact, some of these students even identify as Zionists.

Yet the report portrays this activism as strongly anti-Israel and as threatening to Jewish students. The authors make strong, accusatory claims about this activism but they don’t provide any concrete details about the events they describe. The authors do not tell us in what year and on which campus or campuses these events take place and which groups organize them. For instance, the authors state, “The use of the swastika drawn next to, or integrated with, the Jewish Star of David is commonplace” (pages 5-6). On which campus or campuses do the authors think the use of the swastika “commonplace”? What defines “commonplace”? Who, besides the authors, is making this claim? Based on our experiences on UC campuses, swatiskas are irregular, unusual and widely condemned. If they appear at all, they often do so in the hands of non-campus based people. Student activists relate that when they have seen swastikas on campus, they’ve asked the holder to remove the offending sign and symbol. Simply put, our experience challenges the veracity of this claim and many others. The authors use generalizations and distortions to misrepresent our activist movements.

3. Distortion or exclusion of experiences of Jewish community members who identify as Palestinian rights supporters, critics of Israeli policy, or anti-occupation activists.

Though the report acknowledges the diversity of Jewish experience and suggests that this diversity makes recommendations or generalizations difficult, the authors develop and rely upon a narrative that represents the viewpoint of only one sector of students: those who support and advocate for Israeli policies. A number of Jewish students who are critical of Israel and who participated in the campus-based meetings with the authors say that their views were not included in the report.

Even more egregious than mere exclusion, the report contains a substantial claim that directly contradicts the testimony students gave to the authors. On page 7, the authors claim that Jewish students do not use the charge of anti-semitism to suppress criticism of Israel and that “all” of the Jewish students “understand the distinction between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism.” Yet in their meeting with the authors, several Jewish UCSC undergraduates discussed this very problem – the use of accusations of anti-semitism to undermine critics of Israel and limit debate – and presented the authors with articles they had published, both in campus and national Jewish press, arguing that their activism was not tantamount to the anti-semitism of which they were accused. The articles specifically address the Title VI complaint on that campus, with the students arguing that the Title VI complaint is being used to silence criticism of Israel on campus. The report’s authors chose to leave out any reference to the students’ statements or their articles and instead falsely claimed UC-campus-wide agreement on the applications of accusations of anti-semitism.

In addition, the authors either neglected or elected to exclude the well-documented experiences of a significant number of Jewish students and faculty on several different campuses who have reported being bullied, intimidated, excluded or marginalized by right-wing Israel advocates.

For instance, the UC-Berkeley Jewish Student Union refused to allow J Street U to join the union, despite a mission statement saying the JSU is “committed to a pluralistic vision of Judaism.” Another Israel advocacy group at UC-Berkeley built a file on the left-leaning student group Kesher Enoshi, including private messages in the file. The Israel advocacy group then sent the file to the CEO of Hillel International asking for Hillel to cut support for Kesher Enoshi and seriously condemning UC-Berkeley’s Hillel director for not sufficiently marginalizing the group. At UC Santa Cruz, a Hillel employee harassed an undergraduate student on her facebook page, suggesting she didn’t belong in a program with other Jewish students because she is publicly critical of Israeli policies. The authors did not include any of these examples in the report. We are certain that these events are relevant for a report on the campus climate for Jewish students at UC.

4. Misinformation regarding Israel and Palestine.

The authors continuously reveal their bias in their mischaracterizations of basic facts about Israel and Palestine. For instance, they write that Israel’s fence/barrier/wall is “constructed by Israel along its border with the West Bank” (page 5) – though 85% of the barrier is built inside of the West Bank, not on the border between the West Bank and Israel, cutting off tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians from the West Bank and expropriating thousands of acres of land and precious water sources.

Similarly, the authors describe campus re-enactments of Israeli checkpoints (page 5) as exposing students to “what Palestinians are allegedly subjected to” – thereby again undermining the veracity of Palestinians’ checkpoint experiences, which are widely documented. Of the Nakba, which is the Arabic name for the catastrophe that befell Palestinians upon the establishment of the state of Israel, the authors note that “Nakba” is how “Palestinians refer” to that event. Yet we use the term Nakba, too, because we accept that name as the Palestinian name for the events of 1948 and their effects.

5. Anti-Defamation League involved in writing the report.

While the ADL has a strong record of civil rights and anti-racism work, they are active in the effort to vilify and marginalize people and organizations working in support of Palestinian rights. The ADL has become known for accusing critics of Israel of being anti-semitic and denouncing Palestinian rights supporters, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. The ADL has a history of spying on civil rights organizations and Palestinian rights supporters and was strongly opposed to the building of an Islamic Center near the World Trade Center site.

Richard D. Barton has a long history of leadership with the ADL, most recently as its National Chair of Education. Why was a member of such a well-known rightwing group chosen to spearhead this report? Was there any attempt made to balance his voice with more moderate voices?

Problematic Recommendations:

Recommendation #1: UC should review its policies on University sponsorship and neutrality and develop model institutional protocols for such activities.

We believe that UC faculty and administrators are fully capable of and empowered to make sound decisions regarding sponsorship of campus events. Any action by UC administrators to curb these decisions will be, and will be rightly seen as, infringement on faculty authority as well as free speech.

Moreover, the loss of sponsorship could spell an end to much student-led educational initiatives, which rely on faculty and administrative sponsorship for access to funding and venues. We expect that many students would choose not to attend a university that imposes political litmus tests on the programs and events they can initiate and lead.

Additionally, through their repeated misrepresentation of people, values and events in this report, the authors have proven themselves untrustworthy with regard to Jewish and Israel-Palestine related campus issues. We are quite certain that we would disagree with them on many if not most of the events they would deem “unbalanced” and “biased.”

Recommendation #2: UC should adopt a hate speech-free campus policy.

We believe in the principles of free speech and that these principles stand on their own and do not require any additional regulation. Hate speech should be answered with more speech, better speech, non-hate speech. We are committed to speaking up and speaking out. And we are also committed to ensuring anyone else’s right to speak, and not putting the reins of control over speech into the hands of any authority.

Recommendation #3: UC should develop cultural competency training around the Principles of Community, and such training be required of all community members.

Who would develop this training, who would attend, and who would decide which narratives to emphasize? There are already many academic and student-support units on UC campuses tasked with research and teaching about cultural difference and diversity; indeed, the UC is internationally known for its excellence in this area. Any kind of training should be developed by leaders from these units.

Recommendation #4: UC should adopt a UC definition of anti-Semitism and provide model protocol for campuses to identify contemporary incidents of anti-Semitism, which may be sanctioned by University non-discrimination or anti-harassment policies.

The report suggests that UC adopt the European Union’s working definition of anti-semitism. While much of the EU’s definition is fully appropriate and acceptable, the portions of it that relate to the state of Israel are highly problematic. For instance, there are times when it is appropriate to question whether certain individuals place Israel’s interests above that of their own country. Also, while we, as Jews, strongly disagree with many policies of the Israeli government and don’t believe it speaks to our Jewish values, the clause stating that it is inherently anti-semitic to “hold Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel” is exceedingly complex. Both the state of Israel and the mainstream American Jewish establishment claim that Jews are united behind the state of Israel. Indeed, the notion that “wherever we stand, we stand with Israel” is common in many Jewish institutions. By what criteria does one distinguish between the Jewish organizations’ claim to stand with Israel and the concept of holding Jews accountable for Israel’s actions? What makes one of those an inherently anti-semitic act? We believe that the very existence of the question challenges the usefulness of the EU’s working definition of anti-semitism.

By the same token, we are cautious about the recommendation that the UC should engage organizations to educate administrators, faculty and students to “help explain the intersection, distinctions and overlap between anti-Semitism and the protest of Israel policies and actions.” As we have argued throughout this letter, we strongly disagree with the charge that opposing Israeli policies is anti-semitic. The charge of anti-semitism is often used to silence inquiry into and debate about the histories and policies shaping the region.’

Based on the above critique of the method and the outcomes of the report, we request that the recommendations be tabled and that you consider pursuing a demonstrably equitable and representative study of campus climate for all students at UC. As Jewish students, faculty, alumni and parents, we see ourselves as allies and resources to the UC community in facing our collective challenges. We believe that fighting injustice is a Jewish value, and disagreement is such a long-held Jewish practice that it was codified in the Talmud, Jewish oral law, 2000 years ago. Our connection to and criticism of Israel, support for Palestinian rights and opposition to the occupation are all deeply, richly Jewish. We will continue to fight against anti-semitism when we see it and fight against the misuse of the charge of anti-semitism to silence inquiry, debate, and activism. Education should enable learners to try on new ideas and step up to face grave problems. Our campus climate is troubled, highly charged, and extremely contentious, but we believe that the University of California is equal to the challenge.

Sincerely,

Alana Alpert, BA, UC-Santa Cruz, 2006

Roi Bachmutsky, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2013 (expected)

Daniel Boyarin, Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture, Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, UC-Berkeley

Elizabeth Elman, BA, UC-San Diego, 2011

Jeremy Elster, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2012

Andrew Gordon-Kirsh, BA, UCLA, 2010

Emily Gottriech, Adjunct Associate Professor in the Dept. of History and Middle Eastern Studies, Vice Chair for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC-Berkeley

Itamar Haritan, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2009

Ari Y. Kelman, Jim Joseph Professor of Education and Jewish Studies, Stanford
University; BA, UC-Santa Cruz 1994; Professor, UC-Davis 2006-2011

Chana Kronfeld, Professor of Modern Hebrew, Yiddish and Comparative Literature, UC-Berkeley; PhD UC-Berkeley 1983.

Mark LeVine, Professor of History, UC-Irvine

Eyal Matalon, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2009

Eyal Mazor, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2010

Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD Candidate in Sociology, UC-Berkeley

David N. Myers, Professor of Jewish History and Chair, UCLA History Department

Maya Paley, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2006

Tom Pessah, PhD Candidate in Sociology, UC-Berkeley

Rebecca Pierce, BA, UC-Santa Cruz, 2013 (expected)

Zoe Rudow, BA, UC-Berkeley 2012

Shaul Setter, PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature, UC-Berkeley

Asaf Shalev, BA, UC-Berkeley, 2010

Naomi Shiffman, BS, UC-San Diego, 2010

Roger Waldinger, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, UCLA

Zohar Weiman-Kelman, PhD Comparative Literature, UC-Berkeley

Simone Zimmerman, BA UC-Berkeley, 2013 (expected)

 

Posted in: Solidarity Tagged: campus climate, jewish, jvp

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