fbpx

GET HOME DELIVERY! CLICK HERE »

ADVERTISE
pick up locations
HOME DELIVERY
donate

Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

October 18, 2023

Mayor Bass and BLM

Commentary, Opinion /

She wasted no time: One day AFTER  Hamas massacred over a thousand Jewish civilians, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement expressing solidarity with the people of Israel and condemning the horrifying attack. But while she was quick to make the statement, Mayor Bass has remained eerily silent on remarks by Black Lives Matter (BLM) organizations and chapters expressing support for the horrifying attacks on Israelis and Americans.

BLM Grassroots, a national splinter group with 20 chapters, including BLM Los Angeles, issued a statement saying that it “stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family who are currently resisting 57 years of settler colonialism and apartheid” and that the attacks should be seen “as an attempt to tear down the gates of the world’s largest open air prison. When people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense.” 

BLM Grassroots is led by Melina Abdullah, the founder of the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chapter and a professor at Cal State L.A. with a history of antisemitism that includes supporting Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, complaining about “more & more Jews invading campuses, causing islamophobia, racism, & intolerance!” and urging that “we must dismantle patriarchy! specifically Jewish patriarchy offending Muslims & controlling our economy & campuses!” Abdullah’s antisemitism also came up in a lawsuit by the Deborah Project when she was chosen by United Teachers Los Angeles as a representative on the LAUSD ethnic studies committee and in the aftermath of the vandalism of synagogues in the Fairfax area after a BLM rally. 

After the Hamas massacres, Abdullah urged her followers to attend a pro-terrorist rally at the “Zionist consulate” claiming that Israel is punishing Palestinians “for exercising their right to resist their oppressors.” BLM Los Angeles played a pivotal role in Mayor Bass’s successful campaign in the hotly contested 2022 mayoral election. Abdullah has been one of Bass’ main supporters, a donor and, in her own words, a “longtime friend.” 

BLM Los Angeles played a pivotal role in Mayor Bass’s successful campaign in the hotly contested 2022 mayoral election.

When Abdullah was removed from the mayoral debate for her disruptive behavior, Bass came to her defense. The two women who have known each other for 27 years have been regularly in touch and Abdullah said, “I personally love Karen Bass as a human being, as a friend.” 

Mayor Bass has failed to condemn Abdullah’s antisemitism in the past or the support by her organization for the Hamas killings of Jews. 

BLM Grassroots is not the only national BLM organization at war with the Jewish State. Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the national Black Lives Matter movement, had previously rallied activists “to end the imperialist project called Israel.” While Cullors resigned after being castigated for the questionable decision to buy mansions using charitable donations, Mayor Bass has previously met with her and praised her as recently as this year. 

Black Lives Matter organizations have a history of opposing Israel. The Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) had outraged Jews with its endorsement of BDS. In the wake of the massacres, it has again promoted anti-Israel messages. So have individual BLM chapters, including the Chicago BLM chapter, which shared a now-deleted graphic of a Hamas terrorist on a paraglider along with the caption: “That is all that is it” in reference to Hamas terrorists invading Israel using paragliders and butchering hundreds of Israeli civilians at a music peace festival.

Black Lives Matter has a strong Los Angeles presence. Its leader and founders are based in Los Angeles. As a progressive African American politician, Mayor Bass has focused on forging ethnic alliances. She successfully garnered the support of the Jewish community, which historically has had strong ties with Los Angeles’ African American population, and employed the essence of the old Tom Bradley Coalition, whereby she sought to unite the Jewish, Black, and liberal white voters to elect her to office. It worked, and she won the mayoral election.

Mayor Bass has largely refrained from commenting on disturbing antisemitic remarks made by Black Lives Matter, but with the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust, and the LAPD — along with police forces across the nation — on alert over threats to Jewish institutions in America, Mayor Bass is at a critical juncture. Can she stand with both Jews and antisemites of Black Lives Matter?

Mayor Bass needs to maintain her “go-along-to-get-along” consensus-building approach, aiming not to alienate anyone and embracing a centrist political stance. However, the coalition that elected her to office includes radical antisemitic and anti-Israel figures and organizations, including the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) which backed Bass and has been successful in electing a cadre of far-left members to the L.A. City Council. DSA and BLM have come under increasing scrutiny nationally for their antisemitism and failure to condemn the rape, kidnapping and murder of Israeli civilians while at the same time denouncing Israel in the harshest terms.

Mayor Bass needs to maintain her “go-along-to-get-along” consensus-building approach. However, the coalition that elected her to office includes radical antisemitic and anti-Israel figures and organizations.

DSA L.A. has accused Israel of “genocide” for defending itself and rallied for cutting off aid to the Jewish State. It retweeted messages from the national organization which claimed that the mass murder of over 1,000 Jews was “not unprovoked.” While some politicians, including those backed by the DSA, have condemned this defense of genocide, Mayor Bass has not.

Mayor Bass cannot stay quietly on the sidelines. She must take a clear stance, yet she has not. While she professes support for Israel, she has remained silent on BLM and DSA’s support for the murder of Jews. Los Angeles is second only to New York in its population of Jewish Americans. Antisemitism should not be allowed to play a role in its political life.

When Jews were shot at in the Pico-Robertson area, Mayor Bass issued a statement saying, “I want to be very clear: Antisemitism and hate crimes have no place in our city or our country. We are a strong city — and we are strongest when we stand united against hate, together.” Mayor Bass has the opportunity to show that strength, not just when it is easy, but when it is hard, when it means more than condemning a deranged gunman, but her closest political allies.

Soledad Ursúa is a finance professional and elected board member of the Venice Neighborhood Council. She holds an M.S. from The New School for Management and Urban Policy. She can be found on Twitter at @SoledadUrsua.

Mayor Bass and BLM Read More »

Children of Winter

Poetry /

The streets are one house of mourning, grocery shopping
is a shiva call
when our neighbors look up, their eyes
reflect our sorrow
too much sky and too much sunlight
white tarp ripped off flimsy beams, palm fronds
myrtle branches in the curb

The walls I beheld each day with serendipity
rose-colored, desert-beige
purple and yellow flowers, shy couples blushing
at dusk, Uriel’s smile
the fragrance of warm stones and jasmine, the stray cat
with turquoise eyes — 

I wanted to pretend that what I loved was near, intact
alive
Farmers and dancers, men chanting
at dawn on Shabbat morning
henna shrubs, the full moon
over the Sea of Salt, hopeful orchards along Road 90 —

Along California state route 138
where olive trees no longer bloom
my feet in dusty sandals
I bought local peaches, and a watermelon
and for a helpless moment
l could not forget 

our desecrated sukkas
our scorched sanctuaries, our mothers raped and spat on
our trampled borders, our murdered babies
See this land that I assigned —

I want to know where they will live
if they will live
in 50 years
the future orphans, widows, wailing fathers
all those conceived with love this winter

This poem is inspired by the Israeli song “Children of Winter.”

Julia Knobloch is a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles and the author of two volumes of poetry: Book of Failed Salvation (2021) and Do Not Return (2019).

Children of Winter Read More »

Israel Crisis Prompts Outpouring of Community Action

Community /

Throughout Los Angeles, the response to events in Israel have included robust programming and a flurry of activity reflecting the community’s unwavering solidarity with the Jewish State.

“What we see here today is an expression of that spirit of Israel—and may the love and the adoration and the dedication of the Los Angeles Jewish community find its way fully to our brothers and sisters in Israel who are enduring unimaginable pain and anguish at this moment.” – Richard Hirschhaut

“Israel is about life; Israel is about the joy of life,” American Jewish Community L.A. Regional Director Richard Hirschhaut told the Journal at a recent pro-Israel rally. “What we see here today is an expression of that spirit of Israel—and may the love and the adoration and the dedication of the Los Angeles Jewish community find its way fully to our brothers and sisters in Israel who are enduring unimaginable pain and anguish at this moment.”

The outpouring of support comes amidst Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. On Oct. 7, Islamic terrorists infiltrated the Israel-Gaza border and proceeded to kill hundreds of Israelis on kibbutzim, in southern villages and at a music festival, among other locations. They also kidnapped and took as hostages approximately 200 civilians. 

“They didn’t come there because of a provocation,” Jacob Segal, a board member of the Southern California-Israel Chamber of Commerce, told the Journal. “They came because they wanted to kill Jews, and this is very important to understand.”

In the days since, community members of all ages have expressed outrage over Hamas’ actions while demonstrating their unbreakable bond with Israel.

“We’re here to support Israel because innocent people are being attacked,” Natalie Gul, a Shalhevet High School student and children’s book author, told the Journal at an Oct. 10 StandWithUs rally. “It has to stop.”

Beth Jacob Congregation Rabbi Kalman Topp and StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein speak out for Israel. By Ryan Torok

Speakers at the StandWithUs rally included StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein, Beth Jacob Congregation Rabbi Kalman Topp, Sinai Temple Co-Senior Rabbis Erez Sherman and Nicole Guzik and Chabad West Coast Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin.  The event was held outside the Federal Building, where day school students from Shalhevet High School and YULA High School broke out in impromptu dancing while singing “Am Yisrael Chai.” Attendees crowded the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue waving Israeli flags while carrying signs reading, “The Cancer is Iran,” “Hamas = Pure Evil,” and “This is the Same Ignorance that led to the Death of 6 Million.”

“It’s important to show your support for the community, to stand up for Israel, to stand up for the Jewish community,” Jewish actor and congressional candidate Ben Savage, an attendee at the Oct. 10 demonstration, told the Journal. “It’s such a vulnerable community. They’re such good people. It makes me very uncomfortable when they try to issue a moral equivalency between what’s happening. 

“As far as today, I think it’s important to show our support for the Jewish community and let Israel know they’re not alone, let the Jewish community know they’re not alone,” Savage said. “We’re here.”

In the days following the Oct. 7 Simchat Torah attack on Israel, the Los Angeles Jewish community has come together and held solidarity Shabbat services, pro-Israel marches and informational sessions on Zoom about rapidly unfolding events inside Israel. 

At Milken Community School, students and faculty have busied themselves with hanging Israeli flags throughout the school campus; connecting with alumni who are currently living overseas; and organizing town hall sessions. The school’s senior class president asked for permission to attend the StandWithUs rally, bringing along several classmates. On Oct. 15, a teen-led vigil at Valley Beth Shalom was organized by two students from Milken and two students at de Toledo High School.

“In all the darkness, the students have really been the light of it,” Milken Community School Head of School Sarah Shulkind told the Journal in a phone interview. “Their strength, resolve and dedication to Israel is really powerful.”

Shalhevet Head of School Rabbi David Block expressed a similar sentiment. Like everyone else, the Orthodox day school administrator has seen the horrifying content being shared on social media, including videos showing Hamas’ attacks on Israeli civilians, and has been encouraging students to minimize their Instagram and TikTok use as a way of protecting their emotional wellbeing.

“We thought it was a fair message to use discretion,” Block said. “Whether they delete the apps or not, at least use discretion and have discussions around what it means to use social media carefully. It’s a practical and symbolic gesture.”

Others have been showing their support for Israel by fundraising and doing volunteer work. After the war broke out, Gabrielle Dromy immediately thought of friends who were serving as lone soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces. The L.A.-based activist has since been raising funds to benefit the Israel-based Lone Soldier Center in Memory of Michael Levin.

As the crisis in Israel continues, Hirschhaut said people demonstrating unconditional backing of the country’s people is vital.

“It is essential, crucial, that all of the L.A. Jewish community, from all streams of observance to non-observance, come together unified in our love and support for Israel in the face of the absolute abominable horror our loved ones are experiencing as we speak,” the AJC leader said. “This terror touches everyone. There is not a single person in Israel not affected one way or the other, either directly or indirectly. We are all connected.”

Israel Crisis Prompts Outpouring of Community Action Read More »

Why So Many on the Left Bought the Lie of Israel Bombing a Gaza Hospital

Commentary, Opinion /

Many years ago, when I was still a Member of Knesset on behalf of the Labor party, I was sent on a mission to the European Parliament to meet with our “fellow” socialist members (that’s when I still naively thought that the socialist left was the ally of Israeli Labor).

After leaving one meeting with a senior member from Germany who spent the entire meeting lamenting Israeli evil, I turned to the Israeli EU Embassy staff member and said: “I get it, it’s clear, they still can’t handle what they did to the Jewish people, and so they need to find a way to cleanse their sins by retroactively projecting onto Israel all of their sins. So let’s just be done with it, we’ll tell them we forgive them in return of them just leaving us alone.”

The wise staff person responded, “But you know what will happen: they’ll pocket our forgiveness and keep projecting their sins on us. They need this too much to let go.”

This is the context for the complete submission of so many on the left in media and politics to the Hamas lie that it was Israeli attacks (no, it was another Gaza terrorist group – Islamic Jihad) that destroyed a hospital in Gaza (it didn’t, not even close– it was the parking lot) and led to hundreds of innocent dead (the figure is not grounded in anything). For eleven days now, pillars of the global left from the “Squad” to Corbyn to many in the media had to deal with the collapse of their entire theology, which placed unique Israeli-Zionist evil at the core of their worldview. Without this one certainty of their political lives they do not know how to be in this world. It is the one idea that gives sense and order to who they are.

But the glee with which Hamas terrorists and “ordinary Palestinians” (remember Daniel Goldhagen’s “Ordinary Germans” also known as “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”?) proceeded to engage in the greatest possible atrocities against families and people of all ages, from babies to grandparents, was to them first and foremost a massacre of their entire theology. They did not know who they were anymore without “Evil Israel.” They especially could not handle the terrifying possibility that evil lies on the Palestinian side — the people whom they have elevated to Jesus-like sacrificial and saintly status.

And so the lie handed to them by Hamas that included all the elements they needed – Israeli evil, innocent Palestinian victims – allowed them to restore their theology. All was right with the world again. Israel/Zionism/Jews were thereby restored to their proper place in their theology as the epitome of unique evil.

This is the reason why the intense energy released was not simply of tribal loyalty or “anti-Israel bias.” Rather, it was the collective relief of people whose entire worldview was endangered for eleven long days, and which they – thanks to the failure of Islamic Jihad and the lies of Hamas – could finally restore.

Dr. Einat Wilf is an author, speaker, former Labor member of Knesset and a scholar on Zionism and the Palestinian conflict.

Why So Many on the Left Bought the Lie of Israel Bombing a Gaza Hospital Read More »

More Than 800 People Show Support for Israel in East Bay Rally

Community /

More than 800 people came to rally in the East Bay on the evening of October 10 to show support for Israel amidst its war with Hamas.

The rally took place in Walnut Creek’s Civic Park in front of the city’s library; among the signs that were there included pictures of social media posts and news headlines highlighting the barbarity of the Hamas massacre of Israelis as well as signs that said, “Hamas using child soldiers is a human rights abuse” and “Hamas thousands of deadly rockets destroy chances for peace.” Rallygoers also held signs saying, “Stand against lies & Nazis & terror of Hamas Hezbollah Iran Support Israel” and “The Gates of Hell are open Free Israel.”

Photo by Aaron Bandler

Rally co-organizer Yanna Berger, an Israeli American, started the rally by saying: “Over the past four days, our children were kidnapped, mass murdered, women were raped, families were slaughtered. Our people look evil in the eyes and say, ‘Never again.’” The crowd shouted, “Never again” in response. “The state of Israel promises us never again,” Berger, who is also the Bay Area director of ORT America, later said. “We all know we have one country that is truly ours: Israel. Thank God for Israel. This is the worst time for Jews since the Holocaust. We will fight it, we have to fight it. And we will win. Am Yisrael Chai!”

The crowd then broke into “Am Yisrael Chai” chants.

The following speaker, rally co-organizer Siena Cohen, said that when she was speaking in Hebrew on her phone earlier in the day, “I felt like everyone was looking at me and I start to get a panic attack … I’m worried and scared to be a Jew here in the United States. I’m so scared! I cannot deal with it anymore … and I’m so happy to see all of you here support us. Am Yisrael Chai!”

Rabbi Daniel Stein of Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek recounted how in 1903, the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik reported on the pogroms in Kishinev in Romania and “was shocked by the violence he saw but even more shocked at the apathy of the Jewish community around him.” Bialik conveyed the horror he witnessed through a poem.

“Thank God 2023 is not 1903,” Stein said. “Unfortunately we don’t need poems to show the horror of what’s going on around us. Our phones are flooded with terrifying, brutal images of violence we have not seen in years and years. But also, thank God that 2023 is not 1903. Your presence here today is a sign of profound solidarity. Our Jewish community stands here together as one. We’ve been able to put aside our many, many differences today for one reason: so we can follow the mitzvah in the Torah, ‘Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.’” He later added: “I know that the days ahead will be difficult, but I also have hope and faith for a time we will gather in joy and in celebration.”

Rabbi Jill Perlman of Temple Isaiah in Lafayette followed Stein by saying that “it feels so good” to see everybody at the rally “when all I am feeling is bad, all I am is feeling pain.” “How in the world are we possibly going to be able to hold this pain and go on to the next day?” Perlman asked. “But I remember that we have been here before, maybe not quite like this moment, but our people have been here before and we are a resilient people. We have fallen before, and I promise you: we will rise again … because we are strong. We are a family.”

Perlman urged rallygoers “to talk to everyone else who is not here.” “What I am seeing on social media already is horrendous,” Perlman said. “What I am seeing in some of our news, it is changing the narrative. We need to talk to everyone around us to combat the misinformation that is out there, to combat the hate that is out there. To help our kids have the conversations that they need to have to say, it is okay to not only be Jewish but to love Israel. We need to tell the world that we bleed too … there is no justification for what has happened in these last few days. No justification for going house-to-house. No explanation ever for murder, for killing grandmothers, for taking our children.”

She added: “I hope and I pray that we can remember what it means to be together that we can continue to speak up in solidarity each and every day and when we do we will thrive.”

Rabbi Dovber Berkowitz of the Chabad of Contra Costa later spoke, saying: “We were all horrified hearing the news coming out of Israel. Many of us have family there, many of us have friends there. Many of us are worried sick. Is it one of my friends? Is it one of my family members? And this is something which touches the very core of who we are because at the very core, we are one people … many times we go about our life and we start forgetting the unity that we have, that we are one family, that we are one people.” Berkowitz added that attending the rally is a great way to show solidarity with Israel, “but it doesn’t have to stop there. It could continue from day to day. We need to share our connection that we have as a people. We need to share our connection that we have with Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael and the way that we share that is … Torah, tefillah and tzedakah.”

After attendees sang Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” in unison, they then marched throughout downtown Walnut Creek. Myriad cars honked their horns in solidarity.

The Journal spoke with multiple attendees who said they were heartened to see the Jewish community come together at this rally.

“I thought it was amazing to see our group of people come and support each other and unite to show that there are people that are hurting, there are people that are having families back home in Israel who are being slaughtered and killed and people that are leaving to help support the war that’s happening and fight against this terror,” attendee Sam Geller said, adding that “people can see from afar that we’re united and we’re there for them.”

Geller pointed out that some of the rally attendees have parents in Ashkelon who live next door to houses that were bombed. “My aunt lives in a town over,” he said.  “I have a cousin who’s now in the IDF who went to fight, and my cousin’s wife’s cousin is there fighting, I have a friend whose husband died because of this, it’s just more painful as the day goes by to learn more and more.”

Michelle Mor, an Israeli Jewish woman, told the Journal that her entire family is in Israel. “Most of them are safe, some of them are no longer with us,” she said. “I’m not naïve to war and death, but it’s a whole other thing to see the world not care.” Mor argued that those who say “Free Palestine” are “basically saying it’s okay for Hamas to do what they’re doing.”

She called the rally “comforting.” “The last few days have been really rough and [I] kind of feel really alone,” Mor said. “Coming here, I think it was a good turnout and I think it really showed support, which I think a lot of us really needed to feel that right now.”

Attendee Oren Abrahams told the Journal that most of his family on his father’s side lives in Israel; they are all safe. He called the rally “beautiful” and “very much needed.” “It is sad and a little disheartening that this is why we have to get together,” he said, “but one thing about the Jewish people: We’ve been through this time and time and time again, from pogroms to persecution to Holocaust. And unfortunately we now have another chapter in our history and another date that we’ll always remember and another time that we’ll always remember, but with it we’ll always remember how we came together, how Israelis came together with other Israelis, how Jews across the world came together with other Jews. And like we always do, with dance, with song, with prayer, and love in our hearts we come together.”

Katherine Tottle, who is not Jewish, told the Journal that she came to the rally to support her Jewish friends and take a stand against terror. “I think that as a non-Jewish person this is the time to stand up and speak out and not be silent about it,” Tottle said. “Because I’ve seen too many people be silent and I just want to show the Israeli people and the Jewish people that I care.” She added that “as a human being, you don’t need to understand all the nuances to know that what is happening is horrific and just abhorrent and wrong.” “I’ve gotten into arguments with some of my friends about it and [I’m] just kind of aghast at the things that they’re posting in support of what’s going on.”

Berger told the Journal that she has family in Ashkelon, and her parents and her mother-in-law are “sitting in the shelters, can’t leave their house, they’re locked in their houses and the bombs and rockets keep flying and hitting the houses, streets, destroying entire cities.” She said it was “amazing to see the entire Jewish community come together and making a very strong statement.” “We are with the people of Israel,” Berger said. “We will support Israel. We will stand for Israel. We will stand against terrorism.”

Berger also told the Journal that “a small group of less than 10 people” had “tried to disrupt [the event] before we event started the program. The police came and told them to leave and we didn’t [have] any issues.”

The organizations that joined in on the rally include Congregation B’nai Shalom, Temple Isaiah, Congregation B’nai Tikvah, Chabad of Contra Costa, Chabad of Delta, Chabad of Danville, Contra Costa Jewish Community Center (JCC) and Contra Costa Jewish Day School.

More Than 800 People Show Support for Israel in East Bay Rally Read More »

Stanford Lecturer Suspended After Allegedly Forcing Jewish Students to Stand in a Corner

California, News /

A lecturer at Stanford University has been suspended after he allegedly forced Jewish and Israeli students in class to stand in a corner, claiming that “this is what Israel does to the Palestinians.”

The allegations were first outlined in The Forward, which spoke with Chabad at Stanford University Executive Director Rabbi Dov Greenberg, who spoke to three Jewish students in the class. The San Francisco Chronicle also spoke to the two co-presidents of the Israel Student Association on campus who had communicated with 18 students from the class. The lecturer is alleged to have asked all the Jewish and Israeli students in class to raise their hands and then separated them from their belongings, putting them in a corner. The instructor allegedly separated the students based on their identities and ethnic backgrounds into “colonizers” and “colonized.”

At one point, the lecturer is alleged to have asked how many people were killed in the Holocaust; a student replied, “Six million.” The lecturer then allegedly said, “Yes. Only six million” before claiming that more people have died from “colonizers” and then accused Israel of being a colonizer.

Additionally, the lecturer is alleged to have called Hamas “freedom fighters” and denied that they are a terror group. He did not say anything about the massacre Hamas committed against Israelis on October 7, per the allegations.

“He’s saying Israel is worse than the Nazis and Hamas is innocent,” Greenberg told The Forward. “This is what Jewish students face at Stanford and other places. They’re feeling isolated, under attack and threatened.”

“I feel absolutely dehumanized that someone in charge of students and developing minds could possibly try and justify the massacre of my people,” Israel Student Association Co-President Nourya Cohen told the Chronicle. “It’s like I’m reliving the justification of Nazis 80 years ago on today’s college campus.”

The university issued a statement on Wednesday addressing the matter. “We have received a report of a class in which a non-faculty instructor is reported to have addressed the Middle East conflict in a manner that called out individual students in class based on their backgrounds and identities,” University President Richard Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez said. “Without prejudging the matter, this report is a cause for serious concern. Academic freedom does not permit the identity-based targeting of students. The instructor in this course is not currently teaching while the university works to ascertain the facts of the situation.”

Anti-Defamation League Central Pacific Regional Director Marc Levine told The Forward, “The reported identity-based targeting of Jewish and Israeli students in a class was unacceptable. At a time when Jews are fearing for their safety worldwide, it’s critical we boldly call out anti-Jewish hate. Students — including Jewish students — deserve to feel safe and respected on university campuses.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling for the lecturer to be fired in light of the allegations. “Stanford? This so-called academic behaves like the Nazis and Stalinists did,” Wiesenthal Center Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda Rabbi Abraham Cooper said in a statement. “It’s time for university leaders to condemn the mass murderers of infants, entire families, rapists, and kidnappers. Act now before it’s too late.”

Saller and Martinez also said in their Wednesday statement that there have been “horrifying new details about the Hamas attack in Israel last weekend, which involved intolerable atrocities including murder of civilians and kidnapping. The likelihood of a lengthy and violent continued conflict in the region has become clearer.” They also said: “As a moral matter, we condemn all terrorism and mass atrocities. This includes the deliberate attack on civilians this weekend by Hamas. One of the advances in international law in the 20th century following the horrors of the Holocaust was the development of international humanitarian law prohibiting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Such crimes are never justified.”

“The events in Israel and Gaza this week have affected and engaged large numbers of students on our campus in ways that many other events have not,” they later said. “This is why we feel compelled to both address the impact of these events on our campus and to explain why our general policy of not issuing statements about news events not directly connected to campus has limited the breadth of our comments thus far, and why you should not expect frequent commentary from us in the future.”

The university faced criticism over their initial statement on October 9 on the Israel-Hamas war, as some argued that it didn’t explicitly denounce the Hamas terror attack, per The Forward.

Stanford Lecturer Suspended After Allegedly Forcing Jewish Students to Stand in a Corner Read More »

Roundup of SJP Chapters’ “Day of Resistance” Protests

News, Uncategorized, United States /

Various Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters around the country held “National Day of Resistance” protests on myriad college campuses around the country on Thursday.

National SJP had released a toolkit for their various chapters to hold these protests, which stated, per Jewish Insider: “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance: across land, air, and sea, our people have broken down the artificial barriers of the Zionist entity, taking with it the facade of an impenetrable settler colony and reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near. As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization. National liberation is near- glory to our resistance, to our martyrs, and to our steadfast people.”

The toolkits at one point could be seen on a Google Doc, but Google appears to have since removed them.

“A lot of Jewish students are really struggling when they see their peers or their classmates celebrating, not just condoning, but celebrating what’s happening as a form of resistance,” Jewish on Campus CEO Julia Jassey told Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). “It’s a really impossible moment, a really impossible thing to grapple with and university administrations have an obligation to stand in support with Jewish college students.”

Here is a roundup highlighting some of the protests that took place on college campuses on Thursday.

UCLA

Hundreds of students held a pro-Palestinian walk-out on Thursday that was organized by 10 student groups on campus, including UCLA’s SJP chapter. Video footage shows protesters chanting, “Intifada intifada,” “Free Palestine,” “hey hey ho ho the occupation has got to go,” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

FOX 11’s Phil Schulman spoke with a pro-Palestinian student who said, “We’re here to condemn the genocide happening in [the] Gaza [Strip] and to hold our government and our university campus accountable for it.” Asked by Schulman about her thoughts on what Hamas has done to Israeli civilians, the student replied: “I think that the focus is on the wrong thing. I think people are neglecting to see that prior to anything happening this week, Gaza has been under a land, air and water siege.”

Schulman said that the students were rallying against “the perceived lack of empathy for their cause by UC officials” and called “for an end to the U.S. support of Israel in what they describe as the Israel government of apartheid.”

 

There were some pro-Israel counter-protesters as well, though they were smaller in number. “We’re just here to preach peace and preach love, and we are hoping for better days, both for Palestinians and Israelis,” one Israeli student told KCAL News, adding that that’s not going to happen “if they’re gonna support Hamas. We gotta condemn Hamas first.”

UCLA student Rachel Burnett told NBC Los Angeles regarding the protest, “Hamas didn’t just target Israeli Jews, they [targeted] Bedouins, Thais, Filipinos… and so these horrors affect all of us. And if you aren’t appalled and horrified and so upset with what’s happening right now, I don’t know what you stand for as a progressive.”

 

University of Washington

Perhaps the protest that has received the most attention on social media was from the University of Washington (UW), which was put on by the Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER)-UW. The reason why this protest received a lot of attention was because a video went viral of a female student breaking down in tears as she pleads with an apparent university administrator to end the protest.

“They want our people dead,” the student says to the administrator. “They want us killed. How can you be allowing this? They want us dead. Please end it, please.”

 

The protest reportedly featured chants of “resistance is justified,” “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” and “there is only one solution intifada revolution.”

A purported UW student can also be seen in a video claiming that Hamas “is fighting for their people, fighting for their country. That’s what Hamas is doing. What America is saying… is that Israel is a victim. For what, Hamas defending their people?”

Another video from the UW protest shows a pro-Palestinian protester interrupting a Jewish woman while she was being interviewed a camera; the protester shouted cuss words as well as “end the occupation” repeatedly.

Other footage shows a pro-Palestinian protester saying “F— Israel” and then, when confronted about whether he supports the killing of innocent civilians, saying “you guys are all f—ing gay.”

Brooklyn College

Video footage shows pro-Palestinian protesters at Brooklyn College shouting, “globalize the intifada,” “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free,” and “hey hey ho ho Israel has got to go.”

New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R) posted a video to social media, where she called the protest “a pro-Hamas rally.” “When Jewish women, children, Holocaust survivors and babies are being beheaded slaughtered and massacred, this is what they’re doing: protesting. Supporting Hamas. Asking to globalize the Intifada. To bring the terror that the people of Israel are experiencing now, to bring it here to New York City,” Vernikov, who is Jewish, said. “If you are here today standing with these people, you’re nothing short of a terrorist without the bombs.” Vernikov, along with her fellow city council members Kalman Yeger (D) and Farah Louis (D), had worked with the City University of New York (CUNY) to ensure that the protest was off campus; the protest reportedly took place right outside of the campus.

Vernikov was later arrested for bringing a firearm to the protest, as images surfaced on social media showing that the end of the gun protruding from her hip. Her permit license to possess the gun was surrendered at the police station. The New York Police Department did tell Fox News that “at no point in time was anyone menaced or injured as a result of her possessing the firearm at the earlier protest.”

 

George Mason University 

Photos and video footage from the protest at George Mason University (GMU) showed protesters chanting, among other things, “they’ve got tanks we’ve got hang gliders glory to the resistance fighters,” “smash the Zionist settler state” and “tear down Israel’s border wall.” The protesters were also repeatedly told not to speak to the media. There were also signs saying “Occupation is a crime” and “Zionism is terrorism,” with a Star of David replacing the “o” in “Zionism.”

Christian Julio Lasval, media manager of The Heritage Foundation, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that at one point a counter protester shouted to free the hostages being held by Hamas. In response, “a group of the young men in the crowd began chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ before being quickly silenced by the leaders of the rally,” Lasval claimed.

Columbia University

Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protest featured chants of “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” and pro-Israel counter-protesters held Israeli flags and signs of those who are being held hostage by Hamas. The pro-Palestinian protesters reportedly held a moment for Palestinian civilians, causing pro-Israel counter-protesters to shout that they should be holding a moment of silence for those killed by Hamas.

Hundreds of people reportedly attended the protest.

Penn State 

According to the Centre Daily Times, more than 100 people participated in the pro-Palestinian protest at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), which featured signs like “End Ethnic Cleansing” and “Anti-Zionism =/= Anti-Semitism.” Some pro-Israel counter-protesters showed up as well, featuring a large Israeli flag with a candle in front of it and a sign that stated, “I’m here to mourn, not to fight.”

The Centre Daily Times also reported that spoke to Penn State graduate student Roua Daas, who was among the pro-Palestinian protesters. She told the outlet, “The point today was to stand in solidarity of the Palestinian people who are currently enduring bombing after bombing after bombing at the hands of Israel.” Daas declined to provide the outlet with her stance on Hamas.

University of North Carolina

The pro-Palestinian protest at the University of North Carolina (UNC) reportedly became heated as pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counter-protesters were shouting at each other.

The Daily Tar Heel reported that Rev. Mark Davidson, executive director of Voices for Palestine, gave a speech during the protest where he said, “We contend the Hamas attack, as horrible and shocking as it was, but nevertheless, we understood in this broader context they were Palestinian freedom fighters using armed resistance in [an] attempt to throw off their Israeli colonizers.” This prompted pro-Israel demonstrators to shout, “Do you condemn Hamas?”

UNC Religious Studies Professor Evyatar Marienberg moved in front of the pro-Palestinian protesters on the steps of the university’s Wilson Library and held up an Israeli flag, prompting the pro-Palestinian protesters to start chanting, “Free Palestine.” He was pushed off the steps and escorted away by university police. Video footage also showed Marienberg going up to individual pro-Palestinian protesters and calling them Nazis.

Additional video footage appeared to show a UNC student shouting, “Hamas are Palestinians, ok? All of us Hamas!”

 

UMass Amherst

The pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) reportedly featured a speaker who reportedly yelled, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied. What did you expect would happen when you besieged Gaza for all of these decades!” Olive, a Jewish student on campus, told Fox News that some of the pro-Palestinian protesters tried to trip her as she held an Israeli flag. “I don’t know what the semester is gonna be like for me here,” she told the outlet. “I don’t feel safe at all.”

Fox News reporter Kassy Dillon, who was one of the outlet’s reporters covering the protest, posted on X that when she left the protest, “two guys kept asking me my ethnicity. When I got into my car, I was approached by a group of the protesters demanding to know my address and phone number.”

 

University of Connecticut

The University of Connecticut’s (UConn) protest reportedly featured chants of “Free Palestine,” “end the occupation now,” “when people are occupied, resistance is justified,” and “it is right to rebel, Israel can go to hell.” The university’s SJP chapter president, Jenna Rabah, told the Hartford Courant, “From this day on no more condemning Palestinian resistance. We need to be revolutionary. We need to be unyielding. We need to be relentless. The tides of freedom have turned and it’s important now more than ever that we speak up against public perception.”

The Courant also talked to the chapter’s former president, Basel Alnajjar, who said: “Hamas is not a representation of the Palestinian people. We’re talking about freeing Palestine, we’re talking about supporting the people of Palestine … not any separate organization.” He argued that the protesters weren’t supporting violence.

However, UConn student Sadaf Zarei told the paper that the protesters didn’t denounce “the atrocities that Hamas committed and it’s very sad.”

 

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) protest, among the chants were “Palestine is our demand, no peace on stolen land,” according to The Daily Illini. The student paper quoted UIUC graduate student Josh Isaacs, who is Jewish, as saying: “The resistance that Hamas is putting forth, even if there are parts of it that I disagree with, is essentially the only shot — given global politics — that it (Palestine) has at freedom or liberation As long as the United States government and other institutions like UIUC continue to support Israel, then thereʼs not going to be (liberation).”

Rutgers 

SJP at Rutgers University-New Brunswick had moved the protest to Zoom, saying that University President Jonathan Holloway’s statement about road closures and increased security made the chapter feel unsafe, the North Jersey Media Group reported. But around 300 pro-Palestinian protesters still showed up, according to TAPinto New Brunswick; the outlet also reported that small group of pro-Israel counter-protesters showed up holding Israeli flags, and some of the pro-Palestinian protesters shouted at them to “put that flag down.”

University of Louisville

WAVE 3 News reported that the University of Louisville’s (UoL) pro-Palestinian protest featured chants of “hey hey ho ho the occupation has got to go” and “end U.S. funding to Israel apartheid.” The news outlet also noted that the UoL’s SJP chapter had advertised the protest with an image of a paraglider; Hamas terrorists abducted and killed Israelis at a music festival after flying in on paragliders. An SJP member told WAVE 3 that the image was intended to signify “our return to our land we are not sympathizing at all with the actions these people and these paragliders may be doing.”

Other SJP chapters at Georgetown University and UC San Diego reportedly held vigils for “martyrs” on Thursday.

 

 

 

Roundup of SJP Chapters’ “Day of Resistance” Protests Read More »

Students Justifying Terrorism at UC Davis

Commentary, Opinion /

Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel on Saturday, October 7th, killing over 1,300 Israeli civilians and kidnapping over 150, including teenagers, small children and the elderly. Simultaneously, thousands of rockets have been launched from Gaza at communities all over Israel. Anti-Israel college students at UC Davis are calling the horrific carnage a form of “resistance.”

Hamas is a militant Islamist organization founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Beginning as an Islamic charity organization, Hamas later began pursuing a policy of Jihad against the state of Israel, vowing to eradicate its Jewish citizens. The organization is a designated terrorist group, utilizing human shields, hostage-taking, and the deliberate targeting of civilians to achieve its aims.

Students For Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a network of pro-Palestine student groups across the U.S., Canada and New Zealand that claims to hold a progressive and anti-colonial stance, but often utilizes tactics such as intimidation, harassment and propaganda to isolate and demonize Jewish students, particularly Israelis.

UC Davis is unfortunately no stranger to such tactics.

A 2020 report by then-student Samantha Boudaie found that 73.5% of Jewish students at UC Davis had “seen something on campus that made them feel uncomfortable as a Jewish student.” And 46.9% of Jewish students had “personally experienced or witnessed” antisemitic incidents on campus, with the majority of these incidents being anti-Israel or “anti-Zionist” in nature. Students claimed in personal accounts that they were targeted for their support of the Jewish state or for their Israeli nationality. Nothing has changed in the years since.

SJP at UC Davis is currently under investigation by the UC Davis Harassment & Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program (HDAPP) for a number of recent antisemitic hate incidents, including calling Jewish students antisemitic slurs both in person and online, antisemitic vandalism including drawings of rockets, calls for violence, praising and honoring convicted terrorists, and constant verbal harassment of Jewish student organizations while tabling on campus.

It is therefore no surprise that this same organization has reacted to the recent slaughter of civilians with contempt. Direct quotations from their Instagram page include such statements as “This resistance is 100% predictable and justified” and “supporting Palestinian liberation is supporting whatever means necessary it takes to get there.” It is morally reprehensible to condone the killing of any civilian, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion. Attempting the justification of horrendous acts such as rape and murder must be met with condemnation by the university administration, fellow students and the broader community.

SJP chapters and affiliated organizations across the country are engaging in similar acts, showing that the situation in Davis is not an isolated incident. The “Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee” has released a joint statement with 35 other student organizations holding Israel “entirely responsible” for all unfolding violence, despite the attack coming unprovoked, during a time of increased peace negotiations in the region. Young protestors in Times Square have brandished Nazi swastikas in an attempt to scare away supporters of Israel. Thursday, October 12th was named a “National Day of Resistance,” coinciding with further incitement and anti-Israel demonstrations on college campuses. At UC Davis, this manifested in an aggressive rally that ended at a meeting of ASUCD, the university’s student government.

At the meeting, SJP affiliates mocked Israeli students who recounted the loss of friends and family, interrupted speeches with profanities, and even threw objects at Jewish students who were present. From New York to California, members of the American pro-Palestine movement are showcasing their support for a terrorist group. A comparable reaction would be if 9/11 resulted in increased support for Al Qaeda.

The Jewish people are tired. We are tired of having to repeatedly declare that we have the right to live. We are tired of having to reaffirm our connection to the land of Israel despite thousands of years of history, archeology and genetics corroborating our claims. The question we are all asking now is when is it going to be enough? How many more children have to be kidnapped? How many more families have to be decimated? When will our lives have meaning outside of our own community? The brutality of Hamas’s attack is inexcusable, regardless of the material conditions of Gaza’s residents (which Hamas has itself contributed to) or the strategy employed by Israel in its retaliatory operation.

The Jewish people are tired. We are tired of having to repeatedly declare that we have the right to live.

We call upon UC Davis Chancellor Gary May to officially condemn this support for terrorism from student organizations at UC Davis and elsewhere. Your Jewish and Israeli students are waiting.

 

Gabriel Gaysinsky is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Davis studying International Relations and Middle Eastern/South Asian Studies. He is a 2023-2024 CAMERA Fellow, Director of Engagement of Aggies For Israel, and an elected senator within ASUCD, the student government of UC Davis. Originally from Haifa, Gabriel hopes to utilize his experience and knowledge to pursue interfaith dialogue and peaceful solutions in Israel/Palestine.

 

Students Justifying Terrorism at UC Davis Read More »