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Jewish MIT Students Prevail in Right to Work Settlement, No Longer Required to Pay Dues to Anti-Israel Union
A pro-Hamas encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 6, 2024. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
The settlement of a federal discrimination suit filed by Jewish students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has severed their obligation to pay dues to the school’s Graduate Student Union (GSU), a major victory precipitated by the union’s endorsement of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
Represented by the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), a nonprofit founded in 1968 which aims to abolish mandatory union membership, the students filed their complaint against GSU in March, arguing that its embrace of anti-Zionism discriminated against them as Jews as well as their religious belief that the Jewish people were always destined to return to their homeland.
The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, refusing to pay dues, but union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees to a labor union.”
With the settlement, they are released from an obligation which they said violated their core beliefs and freedom of association.
“The foundation-backed MIT graduate students who fought these legal battles have earned well deserved victories,” the organization’s president, Mark Mix, said on Wednesday. “Forcing GSU union officials to abandon their blatantly discriminatory dues practices is only the tip of the iceberg: because Massachusetts lacks Right to Work protections, GSU still has the power to force the vast majority of MIT graduate students to subsidize some portion of their activities.”
Mix added that NRTW intends to challenge compulsory union membership in unions pursuing controversial political aims at other universities, including the University of Chicago and John Hopkins University.
“Foundation attorneys are continuing to provide legal aid for all those who challenge the imposition of radical union agendas at the University of Chicago, Dartmouth, and John Hopkins, and they are doing so for adherents of both Judaism and Christianity,” he continued. “But this ordeal at MIT should remind lawmakers that all Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason.”
NRTW is currently litigating another similar case brought by six City University of New York (CUNY) professors who sued to dissolve their membership in the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) public sector union after it passed an anti-Israel resolution during the country’s May 2021 war with Hamas. The measure declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity.
The professors had resigned from PSC, but because of New York State’s “Taylor Law,” they remained in its “bargaining unit” — which, they maintain, is coercive, denying their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in collective bargaining negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views. Beyond the plaintiffs, 263 other professors and staff have resigned from the union as well, according to the website of the Resign.PSC campaign, which accuses the body of having “violated its mandate” by weighing in on a contentious political issue.
A New York district judge dismissed the professors’ suit in November 2022, ruling that several previous cases have affirmed the constitutionality of compulsory union representation and rejected the argument now advanced by NRTW. In July, NRTW and the Fairness Center asked the US Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing that the dismissal was “misguided.” They are betting on the nation’s highest court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority, sharing its view of the matter.
“The core issue in this case is straightforward: can the government force Jewish professors to accept the representation of an advocacy group they rightly consider to be antisemitic?” the attorneys argued in their petition. “The answer plainly should be ‘no.’ The First Amendment protects the rights of individuals, and especially religious dissenters, to disaffiliate themselves from associations and speech they abhor.”
Coming ahead of the academic year, the MIT settlement progresses the efforts of Jewish students and advocacy groups to compel colleges and universities to recognize Jews’ civil rights and grant Jewish students the same protections accorded to other minority groups. Having achieved favorable outcomes and rulings in other cases involving New York University, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University, they were notably set back when earlier this month a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against MIT which alleged that it failed to protect its Jewish students from an explosion of antisemitism on campus that followed Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Filed in March by the StandWithUs Center for Legal Justice, the suit sought injunctive relief, which would have required MIT to enforce rules proscribing discrimination based on race and ethnic origin.
However, US District Court Judge Richard Gaylore Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former US President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political operative for and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern — tossed the suit in a ruling which accused the Jewish plaintiffs of expecting MIT officials to be “clairvoyant” in anticipating a surge of antisemitism. He also rejected their argument that pro-Hamas demonstrators at MIT intentionally violated the civil rights of Jewish students by, as is alleged, calling for a genocide of Jews in Israel and perpetrating numerous other acts of harassment and intimidation.
Jewish students have consistently maintained that MIT’s response to antisemitism was delayed and paled in comparison to any action that it would have taken had the group subject to the discriminatory behavior been anything but Jewish.
In August, MIT student Talia Khan told The Algemeiner that the school’s Jewish community is not discouraged by Stearns’ ruling.
“We, as a community, are not giving up after this dismissal,” she said. “We are pursuing all options to ensure MIT is held accountable for its failure to ensure the safety, security, and civil rights of all students.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Jewish MIT Students Prevail in Right to Work Settlement, No Longer Required to Pay Dues to Anti-Israel Union first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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A new style of magazine is coming from The CJN in 2025
When The Canadian Jewish News launched in 1960, it was as a weekly print newspaper. (Sample front-page headline: “Cannot Locate the Organizer of Toronto’s Mysterious ‘Exclusive’ Jewish Golf Club.”) Over the decades, it covered countless community events and developments, shut down and was reborn, moved from weekly to daily, and expanded beyond the written word.
The CJN’s relaunch, in 2021, took place in an entirely different media landscape than in 1960. News was instantaneous and most of it was read on screens or listened to through headphones; The CJN made the most of the immediacy and connection this new world offered: a daily news website and a slate of podcasts ensured that the community was always up-to-date.
That didn’t mean that print had lost its purpose or value, and so editorial staff developed a quarterly magazine to ensure that readers who were looking for deep dives and visual storytelling, who wanted to sit down and take their time with reporting and analysis, would still have a venue for doing just that.
When The CJN approached me about reimagining that magazine, it was still in the throes of mid-pandemic strictures. Our first meetings were held on park benches, and they were to discuss a fascinating challenge: how to make a genuinely contemporary Jewish magazine, one that is steeped in love for our heritage and also clear-eyed about the changing world around us, one that understands tradition and also speaks to younger generations. For a magazine editor — and for someone who grew up with The CJN but hadn’t, in all honesty, looked at it much as an adult — it was a remarkable chance to think through important questions about the function of journalism and about modern life as a Jewish Canadian.
I am thrilled to announce that the next chapter in The CJN’s own story — the culmination of those first park bench conversations and dozens more we’ve had since — will be unveiled this spring. This reimagined magazine is born of two years of reflection and brainstorming, research and design, developed by CJN veterans and newcomers like myself. It is our best effort to create a genuinely honest, open forum for Jewish Canadians of all persuasions, identities, and experiences to come together to learn from and about each other.
We are calling the redesigned magazine Scribe Quarterly — a name that both hearkens to tradition and evokes the journalistic goals we will be pursuing. We’ll be covering everything from politics to religion, education to food culture. We’re envisioning it as a reader’s guide to the contemporary Jewish world, and it will be landing in your mailboxes this spring. You can get a copy delivered to you, for free, by clicking here.
Hamutal Dotan
Editor in Chief
Scribe Quarterly
The post A new style of magazine is coming from The CJN in 2025 appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Holocaust Memorial in Poland Dedicated to Warsaw Ghetto Vandalized With Red Spray Paint Condemning Gaza War
The Umschlagplatz monument in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: IMAGO/Schöning via Reuters Connect
A monument in Poland dedicated to the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto was vandalized with a message that compared the extermination of Polish Jews during the Holocaust to Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Vandals spray-painted “Warsaw 1943 = Gaza 2025” onto the Umschlagplatz monument in Warsaw, which commemorates the site where more than 300,000 Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Polish media reported that a representative from the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews contacted Polish authorities about the vandalism on Friday and police said they were looking for the perpetrators.
Israel’s Ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne called the vandalism “shameful” in a post on X, and urged Polish authorities to find the vandals and hold them accountable for their actions. “Poland has a special responsibility to protect Jewish & Holocaust sites,” he wrote.
Shameful vandalism at Warsaw’s memorial for 300,000 (!) Jews deported to Treblinka. Poland has a special responsibility to protect Jewish & Holocaust sites; hold vandals accountable. pic.twitter.com/4No1PI7ZXd
— Amb. Yacov Livne
(@YacovLivne) January 7, 2025
Other Holocaust memorials in Poland have also been vandalized since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In December, a 36-foot-tall memorial that honors the Jewish fighters who revolted against the Germans during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943 was also desecrated with red spray paint. Livne as well as Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the vandalism on social media.
“The MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] strongly condemns the act of vandalism aimed at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes — a symbol of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust and Jewish resistance against German Nazism,” the ministry wrote on X. “Such acts are an attack on history and the values that unite us as a society.”
The European Jewish Congress also condemned the desecration in a post on X. “The vandalism of the Warsaw Ghetto monument is a disgraceful act that disrespects Holocaust victims. We hope authorities will investigate thoroughly and bring those responsible to justice,” the social media post read. “Acts like this highlight the ongoing need for education and vigilance against hate.”
The post Holocaust Memorial in Poland Dedicated to Warsaw Ghetto Vandalized With Red Spray Paint Condemning Gaza War first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gal Gadot Was Not Allowed to Wear Hostage Pin to Golden Globes, Rep Says
Gal Gadot at the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. Photo: Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
Israeli actress Gal Gadot was forbidden from wearing to the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday night a pin that would draw awareness to the 100 hostages who are still held captive by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip after more than 450 days, a representative for the “Wonder Woman” star told Israeli media this week.
Gadot, 39, presented at the award ceremony in Beverly Hills wearing a custom black silk Giorgio Armani Privé long sleeve gown that featured an asymmetrical cut out and an oversized pearl detail. She styled the gown with earrings from the 2024 Tiffany & Co. Blue Book Céleste Collection, a Tiffany & Co. Archives bracelet, a Jean Schlumberger by Tiffany Two Bees ring, and another yellow sapphire ring.
Many pro-Israel supporters on social media were quick to criticize her for not wearing to the Golden Globes a yellow ribbon pin, which symbolizes solidarity with the hostages abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, and calls for their return home. However, a representative for the actress explained that the mother of four was not allowed to wear such a pin.
“Gal could not wear the hostage pin because she is presenting an award and there are rules,” the representative said, as quoted by Ynet. “She was tormented and therefore published the [Instagram] post calling for the release of the hostages before the ceremony. She thought of a creative solution together with her managers — and wore a yellow ring. It was important to her to abide by the rules and also to remember the hostages.”
The representative referred to an Instagram post that Gadot published before the start of the Golden Globes about 20-year-old Israeli hostage Liri Albag, who was featured in a video that Hamas released on Saturday. Gadot wrote a message to her 108 million Instagram followers about Albag and the other 99 hostages still held captive by the terrorist organization. She shared pictures of the hostages, including a screenshot of Albag from the new Hamas video, and additionally posted an image that featured a yellow ribbon and the message “#BringThemHomeNow.”
“While I prepare for a festival and joyous evening, my heart is heavy, and my soul aches knowing the hostages are still there [in Gaza],” Gadot wrote. “Every day that passes without an agreement puts their lives in greater danger. I can’t stop thinking about the families, waiting for them, counting the hours, the minutes, clinging to hope. They must come home. We all deserve to see them return, alive. Bring them home now.”
Gadot has four daughters with her husband, Jaron Varsano. She recently shared on social media that when she was pregnant with her forth daughter Ori, who was born in 2024, she was diagnosed with a blood clot in the brain and had to to undergo emergency surgery to treat it.
The post Gal Gadot Was Not Allowed to Wear Hostage Pin to Golden Globes, Rep Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.