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State lawmakers challenge Yeshiva University’s claims to public funds
(New York Jewish Week) — Three state lawmakers are asking if Yeshiva University misrepresented itself as a secular institution in order to qualify for more than $230 million in public funds.
Their letter demanding a full accounting from the Modern Orthodox flagship is the latest twist in the university’s attempts to block an LGBT student club from getting official campus recognition.
In fighting court orders to accept the club, Y.U. has been insisting that, despite a charter that describes it as a secular institution, it has a distinct religious character and thus is not bound by state civil rights laws that prevent discrimination against members of the LGBT community.
The lawmakers’ letter — signed by State Sens. Liz Krueger, the chair of the Finance Committee; Toby Ann Stavisky, the chair of the Committee on Higher Education, and Brad Hoylman, chair of the Judiciary Committee — asks Y.U. to account for money raised in 2009 and 2001 by the university for campus improvements through a public finance and construction agency.
The letter says that the university agreed the funds would not be spent on facilities used for “sectarian religious instruction or as a place of religious worship.”
The signers also take aim at Y.U.’s resistance to accepting the LGBT club. “Y.U.’s discriminatory behavior is wholly inconsistent with the purposes for which state funding is provided, namely, to promote the fullest possible participation by all students in the state’s educational opportunities,” they wrote.
The letter presents a challenge for the university: On one hand it depends on access to public funds, and on the other it is seeking to be recognized as a religious institution in its legal battle against a State Supreme Court decision last year ordering it to recognize the Y.U. Pride Alliance.
Administrators are hoping relief can be found at the U.S. Supreme Court, whose conservative majority has shown sympathy for claims by institutions that denying them public money on the basis of their religious beliefs is discriminatory. The high court rejected a previous request by Y.U. to hear its case, but signaled the school could approach it again after appealing the court decision at the state level.
On Wednesday, Hanan Eisenman, a university spokesman, said in a statement to the New York Times that “the Supreme Court has three times ruled that the government may not restrict funding to religious schools because of their free exercise” of religion, adding that “the First Amendment guarantees Yeshiva the right to maintain a campus environment consistent with its religious beliefs.”
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The post State lawmakers challenge Yeshiva University’s claims to public funds appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In a first, a ballot initiative to divest from Israel has won at the ballot box in Boston suburb
(JTA) — A municipal ballot proposal to divest from Israel went before a popular vote for the first time on Tuesday — and pulled off a decisive victory.
Question 3 won more than 55% of the vote in unofficial election results in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, as the Israel-divestment movement saw the elevation of its most well-known proponent in politics — Zohran Mamdani — to mayor of New York City.
Local pro-Palestinian activists claimed victory, with Somerville for Palestine — the group that gathered the signatures required to put the non-binding resolution on the ballot — posting a celebratory Instagram video alongside the Boston chapter of anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
However, as they were celebrating, the mayoral candidate best poised to enact the proposal in Somerville conceded his race to a rival who signaled he was far less likely to do so. Willie Burnley Jr., a democratic socialist who had endorsed Question 3, lost to fellow at-large city council member Jake Wilson, who did not.
A handful of other American cities have previously adopted Israel divestment proposals brought by their city councils. One of those is Portland, Maine, whose mayor publicly regretted backing divestment after hearing from local Jewish groups. An attempt last year to place a similar referendum on a Pittsburgh ballot failed after legal challenges to the signatures. Similar attempts to challenge the Somerville measure failed.
Home to Tufts University and several Jewish congregations, the four-square-mile Somerville has a population of around 82,000. Residents voted on whether its mayor should “engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.” The local teachers union endorsed the measure.
Jewish groups opposed the measure, including the newly formed group Somerville United Against Discrimination, which ran TV ads against it. Brian Sokol, a Jewish IT manager and writer based in Somerville, implored his neighbors on Facebook to reject the measure — citing friends of his who were killed by a Hamas suicide bomber in Israel in 1996.
“I am not equating those in Somerville urging a Yes vote with violent extremists or terrorists,” he wrote. “But passing this ballot measure would unintentionally land Somerville on the wrong side of the deeper ideological rift.”
On the other side, a group of 84 local pro-Palestinian Jews endorsed the measure in an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper. Celebrating the recent ceasefire in Israel and Gaza but saying that Israel has continued to commit atrocities in the region, the authors pointed to local contracts with two companies, Hewlett-Packard and Lockheed Martin, that total over $2 million.
Somerville became a flashpoint in the fight over campus pro-Palestinian activism earlier this year when a Tufts graduate student, Rümeysa Öztürk, was seized by ICE agents and put into deportation proceedings for writing an op-ed in the student paper urging divestment from Israel. A judge freed Öztürk while her deportation case remains ongoing.
The post In a first, a ballot initiative to divest from Israel has won at the ballot box in Boston suburb appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
In a first, a ballot initiative to divest from Israel has won at the ballot box, in Somerville, Mass.
A municipal ballot proposal to divest from Israel went before a popular vote for the first time on Tuesday — and pulled off a decisive victory.
Question 3 won more than 55% of the vote in unofficial election results in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, as the Israel-divestment movement saw the elevation of its most well-known proponent in politics — Zohran Mamdani — to mayor of New York City.
Local pro-Palestinian activists claimed victory, with Somerville for Palestine — the group that gathered the signatures required to put the non-binding resolution on the ballot — posting a celebratory Instagram video alongside the Boston chapter of anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
However, as they were celebrating, the mayoral candidate best poised to enact the proposal in Somerville conceded his race to a rival who signaled he was far less likely to do so. Willie Burnley Jr., a democratic socialist who had endorsed Question 3, lost to fellow at-large city council member Jake Wilson, who did not.
A handful of other American cities have previously adopted Israel divestment proposals brought by their city councils. One of those is Portland, Maine, whose mayor publicly regretted backing divestment after hearing from local Jewish groups. An attempt last year to place a similar referendum on a Pittsburgh ballot failed after legal challenges to the signatures. Similar attempts to challenge the Somerville measure failed.
Home to Tufts University and several Jewish congregations, the four-square-mile Somerville has a population of around 82,000. Residents voted on whether its mayor should “engage in business that sustains Israel’s apartheid, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine.” The local teachers union endorsed the measure.
Jewish groups opposed the measure, including the newly formed group Somerville United Against Discrimination, which ran TV ads against it. Brian Sokol, a Jewish IT manager and writer based in Somerville, implored his neighbors on Facebook to reject the measure — citing friends of his who were killed by a Hamas suicide bomber in Israel in 1996.
“I am not equating those in Somerville urging a Yes vote with violent extremists or terrorists,” he wrote. “But passing this ballot measure would unintentionally land Somerville on the wrong side of the deeper ideological rift.”
On the other side, a group of 84 local pro-Palestinian Jews endorsed the measure in an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper. Celebrating the recent ceasefire in Israel and Gaza but saying that Israel has continued to commit atrocities in the region, the authors pointed to local contracts with two companies, Hewlett-Packard and Lockheed Martin, that total over $2 million.
Somerville became a flashpoint in the fight over campus pro-Palestinian activism earlier this year when a Tufts graduate student, Rümeysa Öztürk, was seized by ICE agents and put into deportation proceedings for writing an op-ed in the student paper urging divestment from Israel. A judge freed Öztürk while her deportation case remains ongoing.
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The post In a first, a ballot initiative to divest from Israel has won at the ballot box, in Somerville, Mass. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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In NJ governor’s race, Mikie Sherrill fends off GOP candidate whose aide spurned ‘money from Jews’
(JTA) — Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for New Jersey governor, prevailed Tuesday in a hotly contested race that trained its focus on Jews and antisemitism in the homestretch.
Sherrill took 57% of the vote over GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli with more than 63% of the total vote reporting at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, just as Zohran Mamdani won his race for New York City mayor across the Hudson.
Two weeks before the election, an aide to Ciattarelli told a crowd at a campaign event that his candidate wouldn’t be “taking money from Jews.” Ciattarelli then took the stage and praised his aide — a Muslim outreach director — without addressing the comment, sparking blowback from some Jewish leaders and his Democratic challenger. Later, Ciattarelli said his aide’s remarks had been misconstrued and cast himself as a strong supporter of Israel.
“He was talking about the grief he gets from some BECAUSE of my unwavering support for the Jewish community and Israel and his own efforts to build bridges between Muslim and non-Muslim communities,” Ciattarelli later wrote on the social network X, defending his aide’s comments.
The incident didn’t stop The Vaad, a New Jersey coalition of Orthodox leaders, from endorsing Ciattarelli. It also didn’t stop President Donald Trump, in the race’s final days, from urging the state’s large Orthodox Jewish population to vote for Ciattarelli. In a message on Truth Social, his social media network, Trump implored the heavily haredi Orthodox suburb of Lakewood — where he enjoyed near-unanimous support last year — to vote Republican again.
“Jack needs every single vote in the community, including all the Yeshiva students who turned out to vote for me last year,” the president wrote. In the same message, Trump said Ciattarelli would “cut your taxes and tremendously reduce your out of control and ridiculous Energy costs.”
There were signs of broader Ciattarelli support across other heavily Jewish regions of New Jersey, including Hebrew-inflected lawn signs in Teaneck and elsewhere, though ultimately he was projected to finish with a smaller share of the vote than in his previous run for governor in 2021. This was the candidate’s third run for governor on the GOP ticket.
The post In NJ governor’s race, Mikie Sherrill fends off GOP candidate whose aide spurned ‘money from Jews’ appeared first on The Forward.