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Thoughts and Observations as the War Continues
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th U.N. General Assembly in New York City, U.S., September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
JNS.org – It has been a great zechut (“merit”) to be in Israel these months during “Operation Swords of Iron.” Yes, a zechut, as part of the dream of Israel is being here not only in the good times but the bad times.
Dreams have their ups and their downs. Ultimately, we believe—we know, we just know—that good will prevail, and Israel will be victorious.
As the war grinds on, I offer some humble thoughts and observations.
UNITY:
For years many have asked: What is a cause that would unite us as we were united in the movement to free Soviet Jewry? In the darkness of this war, we are living the answer. Jews with different political agendas and religious leanings have come together as never before, standing with Israel.
The unity is reactive, emerging as it has in response to the greatest assault against our peoplehood since the Holocaust. Nothing reactive endures and so the prayer that it becomes a proactive unity after the war is won.
SHOWING UP:
Today, Jews worldwide are wearing an army uniform. For hundreds of thousands in Israel, it’s the Israel Defense Forces’ green fatigues. For Jews in the Diaspora, it’s the blue-and-white Israeli flags waved by hundreds of thousands before the seat of government in Washington, D.C.; indeed, in cities throughout the world. For others, it’s calling friends and family in Israel to express support, or sending food and gear to IDF soldiers, or opening homes to Israeli residents of the south and north who seek shelter.
In the midst of the darkness, we, as a people, are emanating light. We are all on our own front, writing the illuminating manual on endless giving.
INVINCIBILITY:
Just a few months ago, we were commemorating the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In many of those 50th-anniversary ceremonies, there was an undertone of invincibility. We (and much of the world) thought Israel was invincible and could never be taken by surprise again.
But feeling invincible is the pathway to disaster. Now we see that we, like all people, are vulnerable. And recognizing vulnerability—even as we understand the strength of the enemy while still believing in our power—is, with the help of God, the pathway to victory.
TRUST AND VERIFY:
The United States has stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel. In the spirit of hakarat hatov, “acknowledging the good,” we say: “Thank you, thank you!” The United States and its president, Joe Biden, deserve our deepest gratitude.
Still, we wonder, will the United States pressure Israel as it did on the eve of the Yom Kippur War? Israel’s bowing to that pressure led to catastrophe. As the rabbis say, kabdeihu ve’chashdeihu—“give credit with caution”—a motto echoed by President Ronald Reagan, “Trust and Verify.”
WE ARE ALL UNDER ATTACK:
The goal of Hamas on Oct. 7 was not only to murder Israelis but attack Jews; forever shattering the canard that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. If Hamas could have, they would have savagely murdered every Jew of all ages—man, woman, senior and child. We must feel, as the Passover Haggadah proclaims, as if we were personally butchered.
And so, we must beware of anyone in the streets of New York and Los Angeles or on college campuses who support Hamas. Such support poses an imminent threat to every Jew. Hamas’s slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is not simply a political cry; it is a genocidal slogan calling for wiping out a people from a land, which can inspire attacks. Words can lead to fatal deeds.
INTELLIGENTSIA:
Too often, those who seem to have the best academic credentials to know don’t know. During World War II and the Holocaust, many in the intelligentsia—professors, elite composers and artists—argued the righteousness and ethical superiority of the Third Reich. Today, too, elite faculty on North American college campuses can be heard justifying Hamas’s murders of Jews.
We must find the courage to speak truth to power, declaring for one and all to hear: “The emperor has no clothes.”
FIGHTING ANTISEMITISM:
It’s not simple to be a minority voice and speak up against anti-Semites. Many Jews are scared and concerned that fighting anti-Semitism will attract more attention to the Jewish community, thus inspiring more antisemitism.
The reverse is true. The more we speak out, the stronger we are; by showing strength, we are more protected rather than rendered vulnerable.
COPING WITH FEAR:
These days, many Jews are afraid. There is no shame in feeling fear as fear is a feeling, and feelings are neither right nor wrong; they just are. While we cannot control what we feel, we can control how we act. Counterintuitively, if we act and do and stand up for Israel, our fear will dissipate.
Today, more than ever, on campuses throughout America, students should openly wear their kippahs and chai necklaces, and make sure that their organizations proudly display Israeli flags on their campus buildings. Day schools should remain open, never bowing to threats. Jewish Community Centers and synagogues should be more welcoming than ever before. Yes, we must take precautions, working with police and our own Community Security Services. But we dare not cower to fear. Doing so grants victory to the enemy.
REMEMBERING OUR SOLDIERS:
During the war, my wife Toby and I have been inspired by so many, but none like our precious soldiers; may they all stay safe and come home in peace. Tragically, there have been many funerals—too many shiva homes where parents are mourning their heroic sons and daughters. The term used to describe an IDF soldier killed is chayal nafal, a “fallen soldier.”
In the same breath, those fallen soldiers have ascended, reaching higher and higher as they gave their lives for Israel. Much like police and firefighters in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 who did not die falling but climbing the Twin Towers to save the innocent, IDF soldiers have done the same. They are soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the State—masaru nafsham al haganat ha’aretz.
Today, Jews in Israel and all over the world are not studying history, but living history: the history of barbaric attacks against our people, when Jews were slaughtered, decapitated, raped, tortured and taken hostage simply because they were Jews. This time, however, there is a difference. Today, there is a State of Israel, an IDF, and Jews and people of moral conscience everywhere who will never again be guilty of the sin of the silence that prevailed during the Shoah.
The post Thoughts and Observations as the War Continues first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence
McGill University has canceled an on-campus event planned by Jewish students—and temporarily halted bookings for all extracurricular activities—following threats of violence along with a death threat, as outlined in a […]
The post McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to cut off federal funding from universities that engage in boycotts of Israel.
The legislation, titled “The Protect Economic Freedom Act,” would render universities that participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel ineligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, prohibiting them from receiving federal student aid. The bill would also mandate that colleges and universities submit evidence that they are not participating in commercial boycotts against the Jewish state.
“Enough is enough. Appeasing the antisemitic mobs on college campuses threatens the safety of Jewish students and faculty and it undermines the relationship between the US and one of our strongest allies. If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences — starting with the Protect Economic Freedom Act,” Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement.
Gottheimer added that the legislation is necessary to thwart the surging tide of antisemitism on college campuses. Although the lawmaker noted that students are allowed to engage in free expression regarding the ongoing war in Gaza, he argued that blanket boycotts against Israel endanger the lives of Jewish students and community members.
“The goal of the antisemitic BDS movement is to annihilate the democratic State of Israel, America’s critical ally in the global fight against terror. While students and faculty are free to speak their minds and disagree on policy issues, we cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and risk the safety and security of Jewish students, staff, faculty, and guests on college campuses,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “The new bipartisan Protect Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses. Now more than ever, we must take the necessary steps to protect our Jewish community.”
The legislation instructs the US Department of Education to keep a record of universities that refuse to confirm their non-participation in anti-Israel boycotts. The list of universities in non-compliance with the legislation would be made publicly available.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre acrosssouthern Israel, universities across the country have found themselves embroiled in controversies regarding campus antisemitism. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Israel, hordes of students and faculty orchestrated protests and demonstrations condemning the Jewish state. Student groups at elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia issued statements blaming Israel for the attacks and expressing support for Hamas.
Several high-profile universities have also shown a significant level of tolerance for anti-Jewish sentiment festering on their campuses. Northwestern University, for example, capitulated to demands of anti-Israel activists to remove Sabra Hummus from campus dining halls because of its connections to Israel. At Stanford University, Jewish students have reported being forced to condemn Israel before being allowed to enter campus parties. Students at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University launched unsuccessful attempts to convince the university to divest endowment funds from companies tied to Israel.
The post US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life is being criticized by a rising Jewish civil rights activist for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement addressing antisemitic behavior.
The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to banned from campus. Such a demand is not new, as it began earlier this semester at the direction of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) organization, which coordinates the lion’s share of anti-Zionist activity on college campuses.
As seen in footage of the demonstration, the students chanted “Zionists aren’t welcome here!” and held signs which accused the organization — the largest campus organization for Jewish students in the world — of embracing “war criminals” and genocide.
Addressing the behavior, Harvard Chaplains issued a statement, which is now being pointed to as a symbol of higher education’s indifference to the unique hatred of antisemitism, as well as its permutation as anti-Zionism.
“We have noticed a trend of expression in which entire groups of students are told they ‘are not welcome here’ because of their religious, cultural, ethnic, or political commitments and identities, or are targeted through acts of vandalism,” the office said, seemingly circumventing the matter at hand. “We find this trend disturbing and anathema to the dialogue and connection across lines of difference that must be a central value and practice of a pluralistic institution of higher learning.”
It continued, “Student groups who are singled out in this way experience such language and acts of vandalism as a painful attack that undermines the acceptance and flourishing of religious diversity here at Harvard. Let us all endeavor to care for one another in these divisive times.”
Recent Harvard graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum, who addressed the Republican National Convention in August to discuss the ways which progressive bias in higher education fosters anti-Zionism and anti-Western ideologies, described the statement as a moral failure in a post on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
“Disappointing,” he said. “After Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcome here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”
Kestenbaum noted in a later statement that Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has so far declined to speak on the issue at all. He charged that when Charleston “isn’t plagiarizing, she and DEI normalize antisemitism,” referring to evidence, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, that Charleston is a serial plagiarist who climbed the hierarchy of the higher education establishment by pilfering other people’s scholarship.
Harvard University president Alan Garber — installed after former president Claudine Gay resigned following revelations that she is also a serial plagiarist — has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest.
During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again.
Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the Jewish state is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.”
The university’s perceived failure to address antisemitism has had legal consequences.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit accusing it of ignoring antisemitism was cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”
During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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