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Jewish Journal

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December 6, 2021

USC Student Senator Under Fire for Tweeting “I Want to Kill Every Motherf—ing Zionist,” Other Alleged Antisemitic Tweets

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, United States /

USC student Yasmeen Mashayekh is currently under fire over past tweets that Jewish groups are alleging are antisemitic.

The Canary Mission watchdog posted a video to Twitter on November 22 highlighting some of Mashayekh’s past tweets, which included: “I want to kill every motherf—ing Zionist,” “Curse the Jews [in Arabic],” “Zionists are going to f—ing pay,” “LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA” and “I f—ing love [H]amas.” The video pointed to Mashayekh’s status as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Student Senator at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Viterbi Graduate Student Association (VGSA) and argued that her tweets showed that she was not worthy of the position.

Prior to the Canary Mission video, Stop Antisemitism had tweeted about Mashayekh, but Palestine Legal claimed in July that “USC responded to the smear campaign by quietly removing Mashayekh from a post celebrating women leaders at the engineering school. After Palestine Legal intervened, Mashayekh was added back to the post.” Palestine Legal did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment on what this post was or their response to Mashayekh’s tweets.

Since the video came out, Stop Antisemitism noted that USC Viterbi’s website no longer lists Mashayekh as a DEI senator and called for her expulsion. However, Mashayekh tweeted out a photo on November 30 of a name badge labeling her as a DEI senator.

https://twitter.com/intifadyas/status/1465890974412926979?s=20

USC Viterbi’s only public comment on the matter was a November 24 statement saying that Mashayekh is not employed by the university and “is a member of a graduate student group that is self-organized, elects its own council members, and does not set the university’s policies. Even though the statements at issue are legally protected, we understand they are disturbing. USC rejects and condemns hatred in all its forms.” The VGSA did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

Mashayekh has doubled down on her tweets. She argued in a Twitter thread that the phrase she tweeted, “yel3an el yahood,” has been “incorrectly translate[d]” as “curse the Jews.” “Yahood is the term Palestinians use for the population that is occupying their land,” she wrote. “While this is a term that can be literally translated as Jewish, Israeli law creates an apartheid regime that favors Jews over Palestinian Muslims and Christians which creates an oppressive-political dimension to the term in the Palestinian context. Zionists will do anything to make Palestinians look anti-Semitic because Zionism clings onto Judaism as a lifeline the same way white supremacist in the KKK cling onto Christianity to gain credibility. Don’t be fooled.” She also argued that “yel3an” doesn’t mean “curse,” but rather “a request for God to cast judgment.”

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Stop Antisemitism tweeted in response to that thread, “The moment you realize you might actually get expelled from school for your vile Jew hatred,” prompting Mashayekh to reply: “I cant [sic] get expelled for protected speech. Stop trying to make Palestinians look like Jew haters for the purpose of carrying out your settler colonial agenda.”

https://twitter.com/intifadyas/status/1465113539492802561?s=20

In another Twitter thread, she alleged that Canary Mission and Stop Antisemitism are smearing her and have caused her “job loss, FBI visits, death threats, and calls for expulsion. Zero support from USC, [of course].” She later tweeted that she aims “to normalize the language of resistance regardless of what that looks like. Zionists have tried to make me look like a violent material supporter of terrorism, and unfortunately there are uneducated individuals buying into that story. Nothing any Palestinian posts online expressing outrage against the oppression of our people will ever compare to the irreparable damage and violence [Z]ionism has brought onto Palestinians.” She has also launched a petition calling on social media platforms “to SHUT DOWN accounts whose sole purpose is abuse and targeted harassment of Palestinians,” listing Canary Mission and Stop Antisemitism as examples.

https://twitter.com/intifadyas/status/1465547989301088261?s=20

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Mashayekh also retweeted a tweet saying, “[H]ow dare [Mashayekh] wishes death on people who are constantly murdering her people, she needs to be expelled from school” in response to Stop Antisemitism’s call to expel her.

Canary Mission has since issued a Twitter thread stating that “since our video release, Yasmeen shared Far-Right conspiracies, equated Israel to Nazis, denied Israel’s right to exist and shared violent rhetoric & support for terror and more” rather than apologizing. They also said in a statement to the Journal that it is “farcical” that Mashayekh is still a student senator. “Is it reasonable to conclude that her fellow senators have sympathy for her views?” Canary Mission said. “The answer to that question is frightening.”

Alumni have been critical of the school’s handling of the matter thus far. Emily Schrader, CEO of Social Lite Creative, tweeted that student senators do in fact affect school policy. Schrader told The National Desk that she’s “disappointed to see the school hasn’t taken decisive action” against Mashayekh. “This is a student who has made appalling antisemitic and violent statements that directly threaten students on campus,” she said. “When confronted, she has doubled down and even tried to excuse explicitly antisemitic statements she made. No amount of political frustration justifies racism and antisemitism against Jews. It wouldn’t be okay against Arabs and it isn’t okay against Jews either.”

In a December 6 Jerusalem Post op-ed, Schrader quoted Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz arguing that the university “is obligated to take action” under then-President Donald Trump’s 2019 executive order requiring “universities to treat anti-Zionism and antisemitism the same way they treat anti-black, anti-feminist, anti-gay” rhetoric. “What would happen if a white supremacist said, ‘I want to kill all Blacks?’” Dershowitz said. “If it would be disciplinable for some other person in another group to say he wants to kill all of ‘fill in the blank,’ then this has to be subject to discipline as well.”

Another USC alumnus, Lauren Korbatov, similarly told the Journal that “it’s a flat out lie” for the school to say that student senators don’t affect policy. “We have elected student leaders so they can impact some policy,” she said. Korbatov also took umbrage with the school saying that they have been tagged in tweets saying that Mashayekh is employed by the university, noting that Schrader never made that claim. “The deflecting, the conflation is really disappointing.”

She also asked what USC would do if Mashayekh’s tweets had used “any other group or race or ethnicity or religion” instead of the word “Zionist.” “I think we all know the answer is that their response would be very different,” Korbatov said.

Morgan Benmoshe, a Jewish student at USC, told the Journal that Mashayekh’s comments make him feel unsafe on campus and argued that the campus community at large simply doesn’t care about antisemitism and looks down on upon support for Israel. “We are so outnumbered,” he said.

Siarra Orange, a prospective student, told the Journal she was in the process of applying to USC but is now no longer doing so as a result of USC’s handling of Mashayekh. “I don’t feel safe attending USC now,” she said. “I don’t want to give them my hard-earned money to experience this treatment.”

Additionally, more than 60 distinguished faculty members called on USC’s leadership to issue a public condemnation of Mashayekh’s tweets in a November 30 open letter. “The campus community needs to know the name of the offender and the essence of the offence,” they wrote. “We urge you to condemn the hateful content of these statements and to reaffirm that such views are contrary to USC’s values. Most importantly, Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli students, as well as those who support the right of the State of Israel to exist need to hear from our leaders that they are welcome on our campus. Such a statement would not infringe on free speech or take sides in political dispute. It is a call for character and dignity. It is overdue.” 

USC President Carol L. Folt and Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Charles F. Zukoski responded to the faculty members’ letter by saying that they were “disturbed” by the “hurtful” tweets. They also noted that the university did remove Mashayekh from a “paid mentoring position” over the summer.

“It is appalling that antisemitism continues to exist as a scourge across the nation and the world, and we will continue to work tirelessly with you and others to stamp it out,” Folt and Zukosi wrote. “We are proud of the many ways in which USC is combatting antisemitism and working to create a welcoming campus for all our students. For instance, the USC Shoah Foundation is one of the preeminent institutes in the nation working to counter antisemitism and other forms of hatred and intolerance on a broad level. The university and the Shoah Foundation have partnered on the Stronger Than Hate initiative, which empowers teens and young adults to recognize and counter hate in their own communities, including on our own campuses.”

Judea Pearl, Chancellor Professor of Computer Science at UCLA, National Academy of Sciences member and Daniel Pearl Foundation President, criticized Folt and Zukoski’s response in a statement to the Journal. “Is it dumbness or deliberate blindness that prevents USC officials from listening to their students and faculty?” he said. “Death threats were disseminated against Zionists. Incriminating statements were made against the very being of Israel. Sixty distinguished professors have pleaded with USC leadership to explicitly de-criminalize Zionist and Israeli identities: ‘Most importantly, Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli students, as well as those who support the right of the State of Israel to exist need to hear from our leaders that they are welcome on our campus.’ 

“Yet, in their response, USC leaders blatantly and meticulously refrain from spelling out the words ‘Zionist’ and ‘Israel,’ leaving thousands of students, faculty, staff, potential students, parents of USC students, and the community at large wondering: Does ‘Israel’ have a spelling? Are Zionists welcome on [the] USC campus? Are Israel-supporting professors who have devoted their professional lives to an institution welcome on a campus they have helped build?”

A separate letter template to university leadership in support of Mashayekh has been circulating in response to the faculty’s letter. The letter supporting Mashayekh alleges that “Zionist organizations” have been harassing her and have caused “academic penalization” since she’s been removed from the VGSA website and that she has suffered “emotional and psychological suffering” from it. “Regarding Yasmeen’s statements referring to the ongoing Zionist colonial project, I affirm that the language of the oppressed towards their oppressor is a form of personal resistance, as opposed to the colonial violence that the Zionist project has enacted against Yasmeen’s people — a people that has historically been brutalized at the hands of settlers,” the letter stated. “In light of USC’s continued efforts to equalize educational opportunities, it is prudent that the institution stand in support of an oppressed student who is being unfairly discriminated against for speaking on her people’s plight.”

Jewish groups condemned Mashayekh’s tweets. 

“We condemn threats of physical violence targeting any student because of their [identity] and beliefs, including support of the State of Israel,” Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles Regional Director Jeffrey I. Abrams said in a statement to the Journal. “We know that USC’s Administration is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment for all students and we urge them to continue to address antisemitism and all forms of hate and bigotry.”

“When a USC graduate student senator, whose role is to foster an inclusive campus climate, expresses the desire to murder all Zionists, we cannot simply chalk it up to protected speech and say no more,” StandWithUS CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein similarly said in a statement to the Journal. “This kind of violent language directed against Jewish people or others who support the State of Israel, would not, and should not, be tolerated if it were directed against other minorities. The School of Engineering has an obligation to publicly condemn such bigoted speech that also advocates violence against other students. Students have a right to feel safe at the schools they attend, and the department has an obligation to maintain a safe environment for all its students. Anti-Jewish bigotry, including anti-Zionist manifestations of antisemitism, must be called out equally with all other forms of hate.”

Shai Abishoor, who co-founded the Love Is Real Movement, also said in a statement to the Journal, “As a school, you have a fiduciary duty to reprimand bad behavior. If a student is tardy, you lower their grade. If a student fails an assignment, you lower their grade. But if a student is antisemitic, they’re left off scot-free. This has become a norm nowadays and unfortunately the people that are guilty are all the people that are silent.” 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also tweeted, “.@USC willfully empowers a vicious anti-Semite. She’s the gatekeeper of inclusion?”

Mashayekh did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment.

USC Student Senator Under Fire for Tweeting “I Want to Kill Every Motherf—ing Zionist,” Other Alleged Antisemitic Tweets Read More »

Laughing in the Face of Alzheimer’s with Seth Rogen and Hilarity for Charity

Leave a Comment / Entertainment /

“According to my imagination, which of these two characters [are] not circumcised? Predator, Marvin the Martian, Yoda, Alf or Steve Buscemi?”

That was the first question actor and comedian Seth Rogen asked celebrity contestants during an 80s-themed virtual game show on November 10 called “Head to Head.” The event raised funds for HFC (Hilarity for Charity), a non-profit organization he and his wife, Lauren Miller Rogen, co-founded in 2011 to support families affected by Alzheimer’s and to educate about brain health.

After deliberation, Rogen finally revealed his answer: “Yoda was voiced by a Jew. Martin the Martian is from an advanced culture, in my opinion. Alf is Semitic, highly Semitic. No matter what, Alf is Jewish. I know that for sure.” That left Predator and Buscemi as the only non-Jews.

The game show, which was sponsored by Biogen, raised $475,000 and connected 2,000 people in support of what Miller Rogen called “a disease that lives in the darkness.” Virtual audience members from around the country were able to live chat with messages of support, and Charlize Theron, Ike Barinholtz, Jillian Bell, Yvette Nicole Brown and Martin Starr served as team captains. HFC held its first “Head to Head” virtual game show in 2020 as part of an annual signature series the organization has been hosting since 2012.

“I didn’t quite understand it when I was younger, and watching how it affected my mom completely opened my eyes to how cruel the disease can be.” – Lauren Miller Rogen

“Since Alzheimer’s affected my grandparents before it affected my mom, it’s something that has been a part of my life for a very long time,” Miller Rogen told the Journal. “I didn’t quite understand it when I was younger, and watching how it affected my mom completely opened my eyes to how cruel the disease can be.” 

Her mother, Adele, was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s at age 55, when Miller Rogen was 25. She died in 2020, after a 15-year battle with the disease.

Alzheimer’s affects 5.8 million Americans and is the most expensive disease in the country, costing over $250 billion each year. By 2030, nearly 40% of Americans living with Alzheimer’s will be Black or Latino. The disease is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States.

“Dementia and Alzheimer’s are unwieldy. Sometimes humor is the only thing that gets me through as a caregiver,” said Brown, who quit her role on the hit primetime sitcom, “Community,” in 2014 to become a full-time caregiver for her father, Omar. “HFC and the education and laughter it brings are a gift.”

HFC partners with Home Instead to provide three to six months of free, professional, in-home care for those with Alzheimer’s. To date, the program, which helps those in the U.S. and Canada, has awarded over 350,000 hours of respite-relief for non-professional caregivers (grants are not in the form of cash, but respite hours). It also offers virtual support groups.

During the virtual game show, several caregivers who have benefited from those respite hours described the critical importance of having had access to time for themselves.

“You slowly lose parts of who you are,” a caregiver named Jacqueline said during the program, describing the long hours and emotional toll of being a caregiver for someone suffering from Alzheimer’s. The grant program allotted Jacqueline a much-needed vacation, which gave her “a piece of who I was prior to caring for my mom.” Another caregiver named Sofia added, “You never have time for yourself.” HFC prides itself on caring for those whom Miller Rogen called “the too-soon caregivers, the too-young caregivers.”

The game show offered non-stop laughter from Rogen and team captains as they joked and deliberated for nearly two hours. There were also bouts of profanity, courtesy of Academy Award-winning actress Theron. The program was a testament to the name, Hilarity for Charity.

But not all questions were funny or outrageous. Rogen also asked contestants how long Alzheimer’s can develop in the brain before symptoms are shown. Tragically, the disease can begin decades before symptoms appear, but one out of every three cases may be preventable. To that end, HFC brain education through various programs, which can be found on its website.

This year, HFC will celebrate its tenth anniversary. “It’s pretty wild,” said Co-Founder and Board Member Matthew Bass. “It was originally supposed to be a one-off event, but then we just tapped into something special. Hopefully, the next 10 years are fruitful both in terms of money and progress for science.”

For Miller Rogen, the effects of Alzheimer’s on her mother and grandparents strengthened her purpose and compassionate empathy.

“I feel extraordinarily lucky to have founded HFC, to have built a community of people and to have helped people struggling with Alzheimer’s,” she said. “Had I not felt how scary and lonely it could be to have a loved one with the disease, I wouldn’t have understood the needs of caregivers. As someone who has spent time in the darkness, I know how important it is to find the light within it.”

For more information about HFC, visit https://wearehfc.org

Laughing in the Face of Alzheimer’s with Seth Rogen and Hilarity for Charity Read More »

CUNY Law Student Gov’t Passes Pro-BDS Resolution Targeting Groups Like Hillel

Leave a Comment / Israel, News, United States /

The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law’s Student Government Association passed a resolution endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on December 2 targeting groups like Hillel.

The resolution accuses CUNY and CUNY Law of being “directly complicit in the ongoing apartheid, genocide, and war crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people through its investments in and contracts with companies profiting off of Israeli war crimes” as well as their collaboration with Israeli academic institutions. “Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestine and the state’s violence against Palestinians by developing military hardware, weapons, drones, and surveillance technologies; offering military training courses and posts for high-ranking military officers; declaring, via their leaders and other surrogates, their support for Israeli military offensives; discriminating against Palestinian students; and repressing voices in support of Palestinians and their struggle for self-determination,” the resolution added.

Additionally, the resolution alleged that CUNY and CUNY Law faculty have ties to the Israeli Defense Forces and linked to a professor’s faculty page. It also alleged that “a number of student organizations across CUNY receive money from the State of Israel, or from organizations lobbying on behalf of the State of Israel, and whose mission includes support for the State of Israel, and whose practices include surveillance, intimidation, harassment of Palestine solidarity activists on campuses. These organizations include Hillel, CAMERA, StandWithUs, Bulldogs for Israel, Israel Independence Day Committee, United 4 Israel, Israel Student Association, Students Supporting Israel at City College of New York.”

The resolution concluded with a call for the university to divest from companies that conduct business with Israel, end all Israeli exchange programs and “to cut all ties with organizations that repress Palestinian organizing and end its complicity in the ongoing censorship, harassment, and intimidation of Palestine solidarity activists, including through ending contracts, academic collaborations, and refusing to be complicit in the targeted harassment and silencing of Palestine solidarity activists.”

CUNY Law Jewish Law Student Association (JLSA), who co-sponsored the resolution, celebrated its passage on Twitter. “This resolution demands that @CUNYLaw live up to its claim of being the #2 law school for racial justice by ending its complicity in Israeli war crimes. @CUNYLaw students want an end to the violent occupation of Palestinian lands and call on all @CUNY campuses to join us!”

Other Jewish groups denounced the resolution.

“We are alarmed and concerned that CUNY Law Student Government is calling on CUNY Law School to ‘cut all ties’ with Hillel, the premier Jewish student organization on college campuses, and several other Zionist and predominantly Jewish student groups,” Anti-Defamation League New York / New Jersey Regional Director Scott Richman said in a statement. “Combined with the call to end all CUNY Israeli exchange programs, this BDS resolution has the effect of ostracizing and alienating a large majority of Jewish students on campus. It does nothing to help foster Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. We hope that the CUNY administration will take swift action in condemning this resolution.”

StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein similarly said in a statement to the Journal, “We’re proud to support Israel and students who face the ignorance and hatred represented by this shameful resolution. Attacking Jewish organizations and trying to shut down study abroad programs makes clear that this has nothing to do with human rights or justice. This campaign is about isolating the Jewish community on campus, undermining academic freedom, and preventing students from traveling to Israel to broaden their education and make up their own minds. The CUNY Law and the larger CUNY system should strongly condemn this hateful agenda, which undermines the basic purpose of the university as a whole.”

AMCHA Initiative Director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin also said in a statement to the Journal, “This shameful student government resolution targets multiple Jewish campus organizations, including Hillel, as well as a specific Jewish academic, placing her in harm of being doxxed or worse, and it calls for actions that directly subvert the educational opportunities and academic freedom of CUNY students and faculty. Last week when the NYU Review of Law and Social Change endorsed an academic boycott, NYU immediately condemned the move. CUNY must do the same with its Law School student government.” The Journal reported on the aforementioned NYU incident on November 24.

“CUNY’s campuses are known for pervasive hostility toward Jewish students and now its law students are going even further and attempting to take away Jewish students’ rights and marginalize Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty on campus,” Rossman-Benjamin added. “The Chancellor must take this opportunity to make it abundantly clear that targeting, harming and discriminating against Jewish students and faculty will not be tolerated, and the student government should now be at risk of having its charter revoked for this egregious abuse of power in their targeting of an entire campus community group for harm.”

Students and Faculty for Equality (SAFE) at CUNY, a bipartisan group of CUNY faculty and students that protests against the exclusion of Zionist Jews on campus, said in a statement to the Journal, “It’s important to understand that this resolution, which is dripping with hate and discriminates based on nationality, ethnicity, and religion, does not represent the views of the vast majority of CUNY students. This, and the entire CUNY BDS and anti-Zionist movement, is organized not by students, but by bigoted faculty members and PSC-CUNY delegates and officers. It is no coincidence that this resolution takes the next hateful step forward from the PSC-CUNY resolution of June 10.” The PSC, which stands for the Professional Staff Congress and is the professors’ union, passed a resolution on June 10 that accused Israel of displacing Palestinians and subjecting them to apartheid.

“CUNY must act immediately to denounce this bigoted, discriminatory resolution and take decisive action to ensure that the illegal and hateful measures called for therein are never realized,” the group added. “In February 2021, CUNY and the PSC-CUNY were already found responsible by the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] and for discriminating against Zionist and Observant Jews; they have done nothing in response to these findings of liability. The PSC’s discrimination and harassment of Zionist and Observant Jews has only escalated and CUNY’s failure to act and to comply with the law has led to horrific harassment of Zionist and Observant Jews on its campuses; this is yet the latest example.”

The law school and student government did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.

UPDATE: A spokesperson from CUNY pointed the Journal to a statement from CUNY Chancellor Matos Rodriguez in July saying that “membership organizations” only “speak for themselves” and “do not necessarily represent the views of the City University of New York.” He acknowledged “that these statements can sometimes cause pain and create tension within the CUNY community, especially when members of our community are on opposing sides of divisive issues. That is why in recent years we have focused on elevating dialogue and building bridges between people of different backgrounds, many of whom have strong passionate views.

“It is incumbent on all of us, especially those of us in higher education, to promote tolerance and civic engagement and to respectfully have difficult—even painful—conversations on the most trying and seemingly insurmountable issues when needed.”

CUNY Law Student Gov’t Passes Pro-BDS Resolution Targeting Groups Like Hillel Read More »