June 25, 2024

On Sunday a crowd of violence-craving Jew haters ambushed and blocked the entrance to a synagogue in Los Angeles, enraged that property in Israel was being offered for sale to interested Jews.  The failure of the LA Police to prevent Sunday’s violent attacks on Jews prompts the obvious question:  Can’t you sue somebody to make this stop?  The answer is yes, but with one important and entirely attainable yet too often elusive condition:  You need to have people brave enough to stand up to the haters and use their name in court.

Police exist to protect the community from crime, especially violent crime.  But you can’t just go to court and complain that the police didn’t show up when they should have; courts don’t want to be in the business of governing police departments.

But what courts can certainly do is require equality:  Jews are entitled to the same kind and degree of protection for their events that all other groups get.   The LA police certainly know how to show up, and they do show up to ensure safety when the people being protected aren’t Jews, especially the “wrong” kind of Jews—you  know, traditional Jews who live the commitment to Zion that’s at the center of our Torah, our beliefs, customs, and rituals. It certainly doesn’t look like there was equality in this case.

What happened outside Congregation Adas Torah happened because the LA police treated this event differently than they treat similar events when violence is reasonably expected.  Here are just a few of the things they did, and didn’t do, when they do the opposite for everyone else:

1. They didn’t put up barriers to separate ideological opponents, when they routinely use that tool to protect people from demonstrators who are expected to be menacing or violent.
2. They didn’t ensure that the Jews trying to get into their shul could do so safely. Instead they left the pro-Hamas crowd right on the sidewalk leading to the shul’s front door.
3. They either issued a permit for a demonstration to people who they had reason to expect would be violent and threatening, or they didn’t even require one. The LA police have seen these people in action before; the Hamasniks threaten violence clearly, and in English. The police should have reasonably known what was bound to happen.

Noah Pollak, as reported in the Jewish Journal, shared on X what he saw:

“The LAPD let the Hamas supporters take over the sidewalk in front of the shul and block its entrance. In fact, LAPD had formed a cordon around the front of the shul to keep Jews out and Hamas supporters in. I tried to enter with my kids through the front door and was turned away not by Hamas supporters but by the LAPD. Anyone who wanted to attend had to use a secret back entrance.”

LA Mayor Karen Bass and the LAPD can make all the statements they want about antisemitism being “unacceptable,” but facts are facts and failure to act is failure to act. The Sunday pogrom on the Jews of Pico happened because the city of LA failed to act to prevent it.

This has all the markings of focused inequality and can and should be challenged in court.

So, back to that critical condition required for taking legal action.

The condition is that Jews who were there, who were affected by what happened on that day, and who have personal knowledge of what went down, must come forward and be prepared to sue. They have to be willing to be publicly identified as plaintiffs.

The videos from Sunday’s riot showcased Jews who showed up in a concerted and serious way, while protestors wore masks so they could hide their identity.  The Jews didn’t wear masks to hide; they didn’t run away; they didn’t cower and whimper.

If we’re going to go to court to legally challenge what happened on Sunday, we need Jews willing to show up again—this time in court.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the legal director of The Deborah Project, a public interest law firm that asserts and defends the civil rights of Jews.

An Israeli cabinet minister whose responsibilities include supervising Israeli-controlled parts of Judea-Samaria has instituted a minor administrative change in those areas, a change that is permitted by the Oslo Accords.

So what’s the problem?

In a faux expose last week, the New York Times claimed to have uncovered a “stealthy” Israeli conspiracy to annex “the West Bank.”

The problem is it’s not stealthy, it’s not a conspiracy, and it only impacts the portions of Judea-Samaria that the Palestinian Authority (PA) agreed, at Oslo, can be run by Israel in any way it sees fit.

That’s the crucial part that the Times never got around to mentioning—that little thing called the Oslo agreement.

There’s a reason that the Times and other critics of Israel never mention Oslo: doing so would interfere with their crusade to create a Palestinian state in all of Judea-Samaria.

Here are some of the inconvenient clauses to be found in those 1993 Israel-PA accords:

— There’s not one word in Oslo prohibiting Israel from building new Jewish communities in the Israeli portion of Judea-Samaria, or expanding existing communities.

— Oslo requires the PA to extradite terror suspects to Israel, to arrest and imprison terrorists, to disarm and outlaw terrorist groups, and to halt all pro-terror incitement.

— And nothing in Oslo prohibits Israel from transferring military control in its part of Judea-Samaria to civilian control, as cabinet minister Bezalel Smotrich has openly done.

Critics of Israel don’t want to admit that the Palestinian Authority signed on to all of those clauses. They don’t want the international community to be reminded that the PA has refused to extradite terrorists to Israel, or capture and jail them, or expel terror groups from the PA and the PLO, or halt the incitement.

So instead, they pretend as if the Oslo Accords do not exist. They scream about “settlements” even though Oslo allows them. They claim Smotrich is involved in some kind of secret conspiracy, even though what he has done is open and permitted by Oslo.

There you see the dilemma the Times faces. If it admits that Oslo doesn’t prohibit what Smotrich is doing—there is no story.

If it admits that Smotrich is doing it publicly, not as part of any secret Jewish plot—there is no story.

And if it admits that Israel controls only the part of Judea-Samaria that Oslo allotted, that would totally take the wind out of their campaign. After all, who really cares about Israeli administrative procedures in a region where only 2% of the Palestinian Arabs reside? (The other 98% live in the areas the PA controls, or in Gaza.) Hence the headlines about how Israel is trying to “control the West Bank”—to make it sound as if Israel is trying to seize land when that’s just not the case.

An earlier Times article on this subject very gingerly admitted, deep in the article, that Smotrich’s administrative changes “have limited effect in the 40 percent of the West Bank that is administered by the Palestinian Authority.”

That word “limited” is amusing. Nowhere in the article did the Times explain just what that “limited effect” consists of—because, in reality, it has zero effect. But admitting that would ruin the narrative.

When the Israeli left and the State Department sold the Oslo Agreement to the Jewish public in 1993, their argument was that it would serve as a test of the Palestinian Arab leadership’s intentions, and if the test failed, Oslo could be reversed.

That was their argument; but that didn’t reflect their true intention. Their real intention was for Oslo to pave the way to create a Palestinian state. How do we know? Because as soon as Oslo proved to be inconvenient, they tossed it aside. They never cared about the PA’s constant violations of Oslo. They don’t care what Oslo says about settlements or administrative changes. They only care about one thing—forcing Israel to accept a Palestinian state in the old nine-miles-wide borders before 1967.

This week’s non-story about Israeli administrative changes proves once again that Israel’s critics will say anything—even create nonexistent controversies and conspiracies—in order to advance their pro-Palestinian agenda.

Moshe Phillips is a past board member of the American Zionist Movement and served as a delegate to the 38th World Zionist Congress.

Over the past few decades, we have seen college students express their beliefs on many occasions – anti-war protests during the Vietnam War, Black Lives Matter rallies, and the current pro-Palestinian encampments and occupations. As many higher educational institutions near the end of their school year, we see a great deal of uncertainty about how today’s current events will impact enrollment for the next academic year.

Institutions are aware that there is no clear right or wrong way to maintain student retention when free speech and academic freedom are in question. With harassment, vandalism, and violence erupting on campuses over the past few weeks, staff in institutional effectiveness and research are undoubtedly scrambling behind the scenes to strategically plan for the unknown: Will we see a decline in student retention in the Fall? If so, how much of a difference will this be?

The value and perception of a higher education degree have been on a steady decline over the past decade, and freshman enrollment remains around 5.3% lower than it was back in 2019. While surveys report that it’s not clear whether our future generations will value and complete a traditional 4-year undergraduate degree, one thing remains clear: institutional reactions make short- and long-term impacts on student retention.

A 2024 survey on campus safety reports that nearly one in three students have felt discriminated against on their campus. Another study, from the University of Chicago, found that since October 7, 2023, 56% of Jewish and 52% of Muslim college students felt they were in personal danger.

A recent Gallup poll found emotional stress to be a major reason that current college students have considered dropping out of school.

Although some students are actively expressing themselves, there are many, many more students who feel unprotected by their universities and are finding safety by hiding or remaining silent.

How can we ask students to return to school in the Fall if their opinions and identities are being threatened by the school that is supposed to provide safety and security? By the school which requires them to express their opinions in assignments and class discussions?

It’s troubling to hear that students are self-censoring their views and feeling physically unsafe. It is even more troubling to know that no matter what happens today – in an effort to protect the institution and its students – schools will lose students. How are we reinforcing the value of a degree if we won’t be able to get students to return to campus to finish it?

How an institution reacts to today’s events will undoubtedly impact immediate student retention in the Fall, long-term enrollment, and graduation rates.

As colleges and universities navigate how to protect academic freedom amidst the current protests, safety should be a top priority. Not just the safety of the institution, its facilities, administrators, staff, and faculty, but the safety and academic freedom of its students.

Institutions are challenged with protecting academic freedom, First Amendment rights, and the safety of students. In order to do so, they must create a space for peaceful protests/demonstrations, weed through misinformation, and shut down violent riots.

To help retain students, colleges and universities need to meet students where they are, and provide them with safe outlets to express themselves. Most importantly, institutions need to listen and meet with their students. And it is the responsibility of the school to provide this in an informative learning environment, free from judgment, while acknowledging that opposition exists, and will continue to exist.

All students should feel safe exploring themselves and their beliefs while in college, and the Jewish Learning Experience program at American Jewish University (AJU) has designed a course to do just that. This curriculum thoughtfully examines the multi-faceted history of Israel and considers the lived experiences of Israelis and Palestinians. It is through courses like this that students are given the chance to understand the nuances of complex subjects.

In addition to creating courses and curriculum that dive into diverse, complex, and nuanced topics and perspectives, by providing students with a safe space for dialogue and free speech, processes to deploy demonstrations, and clear policies on academic freedom and non-violent protests, institutions can build safer campuses for learning that limits polarized narratives, misinformation, and most importantly, decreases the chances for harassment, violence, and vandalism to occur on campus.

At this crucial moment, institutions are shaping the future of higher education and its value for younger generations. For students to feel safe to come back in the Fall, it’s time for institutions to evaluate their campus climate and create an educational environment that promotes learning and growth.

Danielle Sassman serves as Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and University Registrar at American Jewish University.