OC Jewish Students Will Not Be Intimidated by BDS

Coronavirus is a new pandemic, but anti-Israel bias and anti-Semitism represent an age-old illness with modern mutations. One of those mutations is when anti-Semitism is disguised as anti-Zionism, and it was on full display in Orange County this month.

On February 9, the student government at University of California, Irvine (UCI) passed a resolution to divest from companies that work with Israel. The text of the measure claimed that it was in “no way related to Judaism.” Yet the primary goal of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus is to intimidate Jewish students from taking pride in their religious identity and from being deeply connected to Israel.

At UCI, California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) and Chapman University — the three Orange County campuses where I serve as a Jewish Agency Israel Fellow — the environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students can be challenging but is generally positive. Although anti-Israel incidents occur each year, our campuses are places where Jewish students feel comfortable and can speak their mind. Since the pandemic began, there has been a dearth of all forms of activism on campus and with that, a decline in anti-Israel activity, notwithstanding the recent passage of the pro-BDS resolution at UCI.

That said, more than a decade later, the UCI school administration and the broader Orange County Jewish community still remember the high-profile incident in February 2010, when anti-Israel students disrupted a speech on campus by then Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. What happened that day shook me to the core, much like last week’s jarring BDS resolution. Once I found out that I would serve as a Shlicha (Israeli emissary) on the UCI campus, I felt a profound sense of responsibility to create a safe haven for Jewish students to come together, share ideas and be proud of their identity.

Fortunately, despite the new resolution at UCI, BDS isn’t particularly active on our Orange County campuses. One indicator of this increasingly tolerant environment came last year, when the UCI student government voted to repeal a separate resolution (originally passed in 2012) that had also called for the school to divest from firms that conduct business in Israel. At the time, I took pride in the fact that the student who wrote the text of the resolution to repeal the 2012 measure is an active member of Hillel and attends our Israel education events on a weekly basis.

Even though the student government has now passed a new divestment resolution, the UCI administration’s response marked another positive development. The administration issued an unambiguous statement that the new BDS measure “has no impact on UCI’s operations, does not reflect the university’s views, and is not aligned with the investment policies of the University of California.” We appreciate the administration’s efforts, as described in its statement, to oppose boycotts of Israel and create “specific initiatives to address anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism.”

The UCI administration’s response to BDS marked another positive development.

Yet I see “victory” not only when it comes to countering anti-Israel sentiment, but also when I see students actively and passionately engage in learning about Israel. Hillel staffers work to forge personal connections with Israel by running a weekly virtual discussion on current events and making ourselves constantly available for one-on-one conversations with students.

I continue to take pride in how the Jewish and pro-Israel students on our campuses refuse to be ashamed of their identity. The new BDS resolution will not intimidate us. We will not be ashamed of our connections to the one and only Jewish state.

Maya Vorobyov is the Jewish Agency Israel Fellow at the Hillel Foundation of Orange County.