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This university helps Orthodox students make it big without compromising their religion
US Air Force judge advocate Rena Winick Weinstein wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with her life when she graduated high school.
As an Orthodox Jew, Weinstein was certain of one thing: She wanted to go to college in a place that would support her religious lifestyle — and help her find her professional path. So she enrolled at the Lander College for Women, a part of the Touro University System, designed to help observant Jews get an education without compromising their religious values.
Weinstein, now 25, ended up finding the spark for her unconventional career at Touro: She became interested in national security after taking a college counterterrorism course. She dabbled in a variety of pursuits after graduating, including selling real estate and learning Arabic, before deciding to study law at Georgetown University. She eventually landed a job in the US Air Force as an attorney known as a JAG, or judge advocate general.
“It was very helpful for me, now that I’m in an environment where there’s very little religion, to have that foundation of strong academics and a strong religious environment while in college,” Weinstein said, reflecting on her experience. “That was the cushion that allowed me to branch off into the secular world.”
These days Weinstein, who recently married, works at a fighter jet base in England, where she’s chief of international and operational law, dealing with issues ranging from NATO readiness to military court martials.
“I’ve always been patriotic, so I felt it was important to show appreciation for the gifts we’ve received as Jews in America by joining the military,” said Weinstein, who previously spent a year and a half at McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas with the 22 nd Air Refueling Wing. “I wanted to do more than sitting around at a think tank, talking about patriotism and values.”
Founded in 1971 to provide an environment where Orthodox Jews in New York could get a college education without foregoing their religious commitments, Touro is now a sprawling university system with over 19,000 students from many faith traditions spanning 35 different schools and spread out over four countries.
Yet Touro remains a place that not only accommodates Orthodox Jewish observance but embraces it. Classes are suspended on Jewish holidays, every campus offers kosher food and other special features are available, such as Sabbath-observant residency programs for medical students.
Jason Appleson, managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, credits his education not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive. (William Taufic)
“Throughout its 52-year history, Touro has been committed to making sure students succeed at the highest level professionally while upholding their Jewish values,” said Touro’s president, Dr. Alan Kadish, who has led Touro for the last 14 years, following the tenure of founding president Bernard Lander. “Working to create a better world and society is part of our mission.”
A variety of Touro alumni now working in high-powered fields said that going to a school that cultivated their professional skills and supported their religiosity gave them the early-career nurturing they needed to succeed as Orthodox Jews in the professional world.
Regina Davydova, who was born in Uzbekistan and immigrated to New York when she was 8, became interested in pursuing a career in medicine when she was a teenager. But as an Orthodox Jew, Davydova worried about how she would balance a demanding career with her religious observance and desire to raise a family.
She enrolled in the physician’s assistant program at Touro’s School of Health Sciences, which she said help set her up for success: She got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center following graduation, only two weeks after getting married. Sixteen years on, Davydova, now 38, is the chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division — and has a thriving Orthodox family.
“It’s incredible how we can rearrange skin and tissue to reconstruct any defects, and make the patient feel and look whole again,” Davydova said of her job. “It’s not just aesthetics, like most people think. We also do a lot of reconstruction in breast cancer or head and neck cancers.”
Like Davydova, Jason Appleson also chose a college based in large part on where he’d feel comfortable as an Orthodox Jew. At Touro’s Lander College for Men, the dual curriculum allows both for yeshiva study and obtaining professional and academic degrees.
“I liked the yeshiva-style program at Lander, the close-knit learning and the small size of the school,” said Appleson, who graduated in 2008 with a degree in finance.
“When it came to looking for jobs, I got a lot of attention,” he added. “At Lander, it was more about, ‘Let’s connect you with real people.’ Ultimately, that’s how I got my first job at Alliance Bernstein, through networking.”
After a stint at Alliance Bernstein, Appleson joined the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, followed by nine years at Chicago-based PT Asset Management. Now 38 and married with three children, Appleson is a managing director at Prudential Global Investment Management in Newark, New Jersey, where he leads the municipal bond team.
He credits his education at Lander College not just with giving him the skills he needed to succeed, but also the supportive religious environment he needed to thrive.
“One of the most difficult things if you go to a non-Jewish school is that no one’s working around your schedule,” said Appleson, a native of Nashville. “At Lander, you can celebrate Jewish holidays comfortably. Religion is not just a culture, it’s a lifestyle. I didn’t have to worry about kashrut or Shabbat.”
Regina Davydova, who got a job at New York’s Montefiore Medical Center straight out of the physician’s assistant program at Touro University’s School of Health Sciences, is now chief PA of the hospital’s plastic surgery division. (Marko Dashev)
Touro’s president said Shabbat observance isn’t a disadvantage, but an asset both in school and in professional life.
“By and large, people can succeed as observant Jews in almost any area, but the problem of time management is mitigated by the restorative effects of Shabbos and holidays,” Kadish said. “It does mean that in certain professions you might be working on Sundays when you otherwise might not be. But I firmly believe the reset really helps.”
Florida native Israel Ackerman went to the Lander College for Men, availing himself of the night classes and flexible schedule so he could complete the rigorous pre-med science program while spending his mornings studying in yeshiva. Then he went to Touro’s medical school, New York Medical College, in Valhalla, New York.
“Specifically in the field of medicine, it can be a struggle to find institutions where you can observe Shabbat and Jewish holidays during busy hospital rotations,” Ackerman said.
After graduating, he did his fellowship in ophthalmology at the University of Texas-Southwestern and now works in Dallas as an eye surgeon.
Moshe Serwatien, a student at New York Medical College who did his undergraduate studies at Lander, said the intensity at Lander both of the pre-med academics and his own yeshiva studies prepared him well for the demands of medical school. Faculty at Touro also helped him with the medical school application process.
“My rabbis at Lander held me to a very high level of academic excellence and intellectual standards, so I was quite prepared for the rigors of medical school,” Serwatien said.
Ultimately, many alumni say, the seeds for their professional success were planted at Touro.
“My time at Lander,” said Appleson, the bond manager, “prepared me to work with some of the best and brightest in the industry.”
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The post This university helps Orthodox students make it big without compromising their religion appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Vast Majority of US Jews Reject Jewish Voice for Peace, Other Anti-Zionist Groups, Polling Data Shows
Pro-Hamas protesters led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) demonstrate outside the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 14, 2024. Photo: Derek French via Reuters Connect
A new poll released on Wednesday underscores how far removed Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and other anti-Zionist organizations that claim to represent Jews are from mainstream Jewish views on Israel, Zionism, and the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
Commissioned by The Jewish Majority, a nonprofit founded by a researcher whose aim is to monitor and accurately report Jewish opinion on the most consequential issues affecting the community, the poll found that the vast majority of American Jews believe that anti-Zionist movements and anti-Israel university protests are antisemitic.
The findings also showed that Jews across the US overwhelmingly oppose the views and tactics of JVP, a prominent anti-Israel group which has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza.
Founded in 1996 at the University of California, Berkeley, JVP describes itself as “the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world.” It was infamously one of the first organizations to blame Israel following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust.
“Israeli apartheid and occupation — and the United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence,” JVP said as Israelis were still counting their dead and missing.
American Jews who responded to The Jewish Majority’s poll overwhelmingly reject this line of thinking. Seventy percent said they believe that anti-Zionism of any stripe is antisemitic; 85 percent believe that Hamas, whom JVP described as “the oppressed,” is a genocidal group; and 79 percent support vocally pro-Israel groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization JVP has defamed as “not a credible source on antisemitism and racism.”
Additionally, JVP’s methods of protest are unpopular among American Jews, The Jewish Majority added, noting that 75 percent disapprove of “blocking traffic” and only 18 percent approve of protesters’ wearing masks to conceal their identities. Sixty percent also disagree with staging protests outside the homes of public officials, a common JVP tactic.
“Plain and simple, Jewish Voice for Peace is an extremist group that does not represent the views of the overwhelming majority of American Jews,” Jonathan Schulman, The Jewish Majority’s executive director, said in a statement accompanying the poll results. “American Jews share a strong and consistent stance against anti-Zionists as well as a deep concern over rising antisemitism and the tactics used by organizations like JVP.”
He continued, “It is high time people see through the charade: JVP is not representative of anyone but a marginal fringe, even if a few radical Jews are involved in their movement.”
The Jewish Majority’s poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
Jewish Voice for Peace’s inner workings, messaging, and political activities were recently documented in a groundbreaking report on the group published last month by StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group based in Los Angeles, California.
Titled, “A Shield for Hate, Not a Voice for Peace,” the report noted that JVP has promoted a distorted history of Zionism and Israel, accusing the movement for Jewish self-determination of everything from training US police officers to violate the rights of African Americans to abusing “Jewish history.” In doing so, it has allied with extremist groups such as WithinOurLifetime — whose founder has threatened to set Jews on fire and led a movement to harass Jews on New York City’s public transportation — and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), which celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and has proclaimed that “the Zionist entity has no right to exist.”
The report also stated that JVP has collaborated with anti-Israel entities such as Samidoun, which identifies itself as a “Palestinian prisoner solidarity network,” to hold rallies. Samidoun described Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel as “a brave and heroic operation.” The United States and Canada each imposed sanctions on Samidoun in October, labeling the organization a “sham charity” and accusing it of fundraising for designated terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
JVP has also compared Zionism to Nazism.
“This is Holocaust inversion — an antisemitic tactic in which the genocide Jews faced in the past is used to promote baseless hatred against Jews today,” the StandWithUs report said. “The only group benefiting from JVP’s Holocaust inversion is Hamas — a truly genocidal terrorist group. JVP has helped shield them from accountability for launching the war, ruthlessly militarizing civilian areas across Gaza, stealing humanitarian aid, and rejecting nearly every proposed ceasefire and hostage release deal.”
In June 2024, the Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) accusing the political fundraising arm of JVP of transgressing federal election law by misrepresenting its spending and receiving unlawful donations from corporate entities, citing “discrepancies” in the organization’s income and expense reports.
The complaint lodged a slew of charges against Jewish Voice for Peace’s political action committee (JVP PAC), including spending almost no money on candidates running for office — a political action committee’s main purpose. From 2020-2023, JVP PAC reported spending $82,956, but just a small fraction of that sum — $1,775, just over 2 percent — was spent on candidates, according to the complaint. The money went elsewhere, being paid out in one case for “legal services” provided by a company which “doesn’t appear to practice law” and other expenses.
JVP continues to have the support of powerful friends in the world of progressive philanthropy, a formidable subset of the American elite, amid these scandals and controversies.
Since 2017 it has — according to a 2023 report by the National Association of Scholars — received $480,000 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a philanthropic foundation whose endowment is valued at $1.27 billion. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, JVP brought in over half a million dollars in grants from various foundations, including the Open Society Policy Center — founded by billionaire George Soros — the Kaphan Foundation, and others.
According to the recent StandWithUs report, JVP has received substantial financial assistance from organizations tied to Lebanon and Iran.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Vast Majority of US Jews Reject Jewish Voice for Peace, Other Anti-Zionist Groups, Polling Data Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a joint statement to the media in Baghdad, Iraq, April 22, 2024. Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Pool via REUTERS
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday demanded Israel pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza” and urged the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state.
During a press conference with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in West Java, as part of his Asian tour to Malaysia and Pakistan, Erdogan rejected US President Donald Trump’s plan to “take over” the Gaza Strip to rebuild the war-torn enclave while relocating Palestinians elsewhere during reconstruction efforts.
Like many other Middle Eastern leaders who rejected Trump’s proposal, Erdogan also advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“The creation of a sovereign, territorially united State of Palestine within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital cannot be delayed any further,” he said during the press conference, as aired by the Turkish TRT Haber TV channel.
“Any step, proposal, or project that undermines this matter is illegitimate in our view, and it means more conflicts, bloodshed, and instability,” he continued.
During Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House last week, Trump called on Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states to take in Palestinians from Gaza after nearly 16 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
“Until there is peace in Gaza, until the Palestinians achieve peace, peace in the region is impossible,” the Turkish president said.
With talks underway to extend the fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Erdogan also demanded that Israel must pay reparations “for the harm it inflicted through its aggressive actions in Gaza.”
“The cost of Israel’s 15-month attacks in Gaza is about $100 billion,” he said. “The law dictates that the perpetrator must compensate for the damage.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
Last month, both sides reached a ceasefire and hostage-release deal brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar.
Under phase one, Hamas agreed to release 33 Israeli hostages, eight of whom are deceased, in exchange for Israel freeing over 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom are serving multiple life sentences for terrorism-related offenses.
So far, 16 of the 33 hostages have been released during the first phase, which is set to last six weeks.
During the press conference, Erdogan also announced that Turkey and Indonesia will join forces in the reconstruction of Gaza.
Last month, Erdogan met with Hamas leader Muhammad Ismail Darwish in Ankara.
Turkey has been one of the most outspoken critics of Israel during the Gaza war, even threatening to invade the Jewish state and calling on the United Nations to use force if it cannot stop Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.
Last year, Ankara also ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel, citing the “humanitarian tragedy” in the Palestinian territories as the reason.
Erdogan has frequently defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. He and other Turkish leaders have repeatedly compared Israel with Nazi Germany and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolf Hitler.
The post Turkey’s Erdogan Demands Israel Pay Reparations for Gaza, Says Palestinian State ‘Must Not Be Delayed’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boston University Rejects Proposal to Divest From Israel
College students in the Boston, Massachusetts area hold dueling demonstrations amid Israel’s war with Hamas in April 2024. Photo: Vincent Ricci via Reuters Connect
Boston University has rejected the group Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) call for its endowment to be divested of holdings in companies which sell armaments to the Israeli military, becoming the latest higher education institution to refuse this key tenet of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
“The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate; nevertheless, I will continue to seek ways that members of our community can engage with each other on political issues of our day including the conflict in the Middle East,” university president Melissa Gilliam said on Tuesday in a statement which reported the will of the board of trustees. “Our traditions of free speech and academic freedom are critical to who we are as an institution, and so is our tradition of finding common ground to engage difficult topics while respecting the dignity of every individual.”
Gilliam’s announcement comes amid SJP’s push to hold a student government administered referendum on divestment, a policy goal the group has pursued since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Its hopes were dashed on Tuesday when what SJP described as “technical difficulties” caused the referendum to be postponed indefinitely. However, SJP hinted that the delay may have been caused by its failing to draw a “representative sample of BU’s undergraduate population” to the polls.
SJP’s relationship with the university is poor, according to The Daily Free Press, Boston University’s official campus newspaper. In November, the Student and Activities Office issued the group a “formal warning” following multiple violations of policies on peaceful assembly. SJP, the Free Press said, occupied an area of the Center for Computing and Data Sciences for two days and tacked anti-Zionist propaganda — which included accusations that Boston University profits from “death” — on school property inside the building despite being forewarned that doing so is verboten. Following the disciplinary action, SJP accused the university of being “discriminatory towards SJP and our events.”
American universities have largely rejected demands to divest from Israel and entities at all linked to the Jewish state, delivering a succession of blows to the pro-Hamas protest movement that students and faculty have pushed with dozens of illegal demonstrations aimed at coercing officials into enacting the policy.
Trinity College turned away BDS advocates in November, citing its “fiduciary responsibilities” and “primary objective of maintaining the endowment’s intergeneration equity.” It also noted that acceding to demands for divestment for the sake of “utilizing the endowment to exert political influence” would injure the college financially, stressing that doing so would “compromise our access to fund managers, in turn undermining the board’s ability to perform its fiduciary obligation.”
The University of Minnesota in August pointed to the same reason for spurning divestment while stressing the extent to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict polarizes its campus community. It coupled its pronouncement with a new investment policy, a so-called “position of neutrality” which, it says, will be a guardrail protecting university business from the caprices of political opinion.
Colleges and universities will lose tens of billions of dollars collectively from their endowments if they capitulate to demands to divest from Israel, according to a report published in September by JLens, a Jewish investor network that is part of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Titled “The Impact of Israel Divestment on Equity Portfolios: Forecasting BDS’s Financial Toll on University Endowments,” the report presented the potential financial impact of universities adopting the BDS movement, which is widely condemned for being antisemitic.
The losses estimated by JLens are catastrophic. Adopting BDS, it said, would incinerate $33.21 billion of future returns for the 100 largest university endowments over the next 10 years, with Harvard University losing $2.5 billion and the University of Texas losing $2.2 billion. Other schools would forfeit over $1 billion, including the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Princeton University. For others, such as the University of Michigan and Dartmouth College, the damages would total in the hundreds of millions.
“This groundbreaking report approached the morally problematic BDS movement from an entirely new direction — its negative impact on portfolio returns,” New York University adjunct professor Michael Lustig said in a statement extolling the report. “JLens has done a great job in quantifying the financial effects of implementing the suggestions of this pernicious movement, and importantly, they ‘show their work’ by providing full transparency into their methodology, and properly caveat the points where assumptions must necessarily be made. This report will prove to be an important tool in helping to fight noxious BDS advocacy.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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