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March 27, 2018

Report Exposes Anti-Semitism in Wayne State University SJP

A new report issued by Canary Mission exposes various anti-Semitic comments uttered by members of Wayne State University (WSU)’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as the chapter begins Israel Apartheid Week.

The report highlights how the WSU SJP’s Facebook page issued posts lionizing Palestinian terrorists, most notably Yasser Arafat, who is considered to the “father of modern terrorism”, Rasmea Odeh, who is convicted of being involved in a bombing that murdered two college students and Leila Khaled, who was involved in a couple of hijackings.

WSU’s SJP chapter was co-founded by Summer Baraka in 2014, whose anti-Semitic tweets include a 2013 tweet that states, “Allah yin3an al yahood ou bas”, which translates to “May Allah curse the Jews, and that is all.” Baraka also tweeted in 2012 that she hoped Jews confronted her at school and in 2016 she tweeted for “a revolution that protects our nation and erases Israel.” Baraka served as the president of the chapter from 2015-2017.

The current president of the chapter, Mayssa Masri, has tweeted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about how “there are more Jewish terrorists in the U.S than Muslims” and that Zionists control the media. Masri has also tweeted the blood libel that “What Israelis are doing to Palis is just as bad as the holocaust. Except it’s lasted for decades against Palis and who knows when it’ll end.” Masri has also re-tweeted a tweet glorifying Marwin Barghouti, who funded the 2001 Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing in Jerusalem and lead the Palestinian terrorist organizations Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

Other instances of anti-Semitism in the SJP WSU include SJP WSU Officer Sherin Shkoukani tweeting “once a Jew always a Jew aka once a dumb— f— always a dumb— f—“ and that she will “laugh when a real war breaks out and hitler number two comes out.” SJP WSU Activist Dana Abulqalbain called for a Third Intifada on Facebook.

This is what the SJP WSU consists of as they launch their Palestine Awareness Week, which featured a mock Israeli Apartheid Wall on Mar. 26 and will be hosting events until Mar. 29.

“The administration at WSU should treat these leaders the way they would treat any other hate group on campus,” Maccabee Task Force Executive Director David Brog told the Algemeiner. “Racism is racism, no matter whom is targeted.”

However, WSU spokesman Ted Montgomery told the Algemeiner that they wouldn’t take any action against SJP WSU because they haven’t “posed any disruption or danger.”

SJP WSU has yet to respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

Read Canary Mission’s full report here.

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Believing in Miracles

When I think about God splitting of the sea I’m reminded of the story of Joey who when asked by his father what he learned in Sunday school explained that Israeli engineers laid pontoons across the sea so that the Israelis could cross over safely, attack the Egyptian army and win the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Then Joey told his father that the same Israelis snuck back and laid charges under the bridges so that as the Egyptians crossed the bridges, they exploded and the Egyptians drowned.

Joey’s father said: “You didn’t learn that in Sunday school?”

Joey confessed: “No Dad, but you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what my teacher really told us.”

To children and adults alike, the parting of the Sea of Reeds in the Exodus story is incredulous. What to make of it as it defies reason? Wouldn’t a more relevant liberation story be Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Kings “I Have a Dream” speech, Natan Sharansky’s address to the sentencing Soviet court, or Israel’s Declaration of Independence?

The Kotzker Rebbe said: “Whoever believes in miracles is a fool; and whoever does not believe in miracles is an atheist.” Is there no middle ground?

How ought we to read the Exodus text?

Here’s another way.

Nachshon ben Aminadav, a little known figure in the Exodus story, took matters into his own hands and as the Egyptians advanced and Moses prayed Nachshon jumped into the waters and started swimming. The Midrash says that Moses’ faith and Nachshon’s activism persuaded God to split the sea.

I’m reminded of the story of the man caught in a flood. While standing on his roof he prayed that God would save him. In the next hour 3 helicopters and 3 boats arrived but he refused them all claiming that he’d rather wait for God to save him. When the flood waters engulfed him he complained bitterly to the Almighty: “I’ve been a good man my whole life, but when I prayed to You to save me, you ignored my plea!”

“Nebesh!” God screamed, “I sent you 3 helicopters and 3 boats. Next time, help yourself?”

So – what’s a miracle? Philosophers answer the question in the negative; what isn’t a miracle? Judaism teaches that a miracle isn’t the radical transformation of the natural world. Divine wisdom and goodness lie not in rupturing God’s reign of universal law, but in the reliability of the steady order of the world.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis put it this way: “Faith isn’t dependent on miracles….miracles depend on faith. And faith, far from blind, sees life’s deeper truths.”

However defined, no miracle without faith is possible. Rabbi Abraham Heschel noted that a miracle has less to do with great historical peak events as it does in our consciousness of what lies before us at all times: “To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments.”

Rabbi Akiba was challenged by the pagan Tineus Rufus: “Whose deeds are greater, those of God or humankind?”

Akiba replied: “Greater are human deeds.”

The pagan asked how he could make such a claim.

Akiba brought sheaves of wheat and loaves of cakes and asked, “Which are superior?” The great sage answered his own question: the loaves of cakes excel because they required a human being to take the wheat and make something life-sustaining.

The lesson of the Sea of Reeds isn’t in the splitting of the Sea. It’s in our conscientious capacity to take action and transform the world.

As we prepare Pesach this week, our nation’s teens marching for reasonable gun control this past week is a great example of how we humans can transform ourselves and our world.

THAT is a miracle.

Chag Pesach Sameach!

 

 

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