Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on January 28, 2021

Tzippi Sha-ked:

We nearly broke up. It came that close. Pam, Danit and I barely maintained a friendship, let alone civil discourse, when writing this column. What started out as a project to bring disparate women from across Israels religious spectrum to the table for healing dialogue turned into an exercise in branding one another. Painful!

Mainly, Danit and I found it exhausting to sidestep Pams verbal barrage against haredim (ultra-Orthodox), and often against National-Religious, and to concentrate on the goal of nation-building. I got sick of name-calling without any constructive input. I advocated in our book, Three Ladies Three Lattes: Percolating Discussions in the Holy Land, that we need to address our societal rifts by undergoing national marital therapy. I sought to apply the principles of marital counseling to bridge the divide between the secular, National-Religious and haredi sectors.

I proposed we treat our problems by building trust in one another, acknowledging each issue as a collective one, and even monitoring internal statements about the other.

Ha! What a joke. Writing together only seemed to escalate the tension among us. Well, arent we three a veritable microcosm of a macrocosm that desperately needs CPR?

Where to begin when Pam is quick to label haredim and their behaviors as cult-like?

Sigh. How to convince anyone that relationships can be enhanced via talking, identifying our strengths and gulp even learning to compliment the other?

Are you bloody mad, Tzip? Pam constantly intoned. They are a cult and will destroy our country! Are you blind?

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OK, but how does vilifying the other serve this column and the country? Seriously ladies, cant we move the problem from the emotional to the problem-solving realm?

Well, apparently not because it was easier to keep bashing than working to solve.

So our incendiary discourse, finger-pointing, blaming and relentless hatred (coupled with the assurance that Pam speaks for much of the country) led Danit to throw in the towel. Well, almost. She had to ask her rav a shaila (question) about continuing.

The funny thing is that Im much closer to Pams positions than to Danits on multiple issues. For example, I have a problem with the way COVIDs been addressed by many (obviously not all) haredim. A month ago, the rosh of a prominent Israeli yeshiva succumbed to COVID. Mourners attended his funeral in droves, many without masks. Ironic, or spitting on their own ravs grave?

Lehavdil, to note the difference, my New York-based brother, very careful about corona, likely caught it from his own haredi community. Hes paid a heavy price health-wise. How dare some haredim approach their own and others with utter disregard for life? Intentional malice? No, just shameful ignorance and conduct.

How do we stop this? Education.

Period.

We three ladies cant give up on one another any more than this nation can give up on any of its denizens. As Rabbi Soloveitchik noted, our people are wedded to one another, if not by faith, then by fate.

So lets deal.

Danit Shemesh:

Its never easy to divorce. How does one know when it is time? My rabbi taught me that if you dont like the married version of yourself, if you dont feel you have the strength to be yourself vis--vis your partner, then its time to think about making a change. Saying enough is enough is also a skill. All three of us, I think, do not like who we have become in this partnership.

I foolishly wanted our column to be a social experiment where my haredi world is interesting and compelling to others because it is so very different. Instead, the column became a sort of inquisition where I was on the stand, botching up any explanation or representation of haredi life in the face of minds that have become set in stone against us. I suppose my piece is dedicated only to those minds that still remain open.

We, as a nation, are stuck in our rigid thinking of the other. There is much ignorance, seemingly little curiosity, and rarely an open mind. Our media breed fear, and all of us remain vulnerable to news sources that include editorial bias. Naturally this contributes to a climate of hatred in our culture. We have outsourced our clarity and thinking to leaders who have not necessarily earned their position of trust and power. Our world has become unstable and, in turn, we are expected to comply with groupthink. Im not speaking of secular or haredi leadership or media. Im speaking of ourhome, which has been hijacked, not by the haredim, but by this demoralized state of being. All of us, including the haredim, are to blame for allowing fear to trump common sense and compassion.

This mess is bigger than all of us. This is Divine intervention collapsing our world as we know it in order to create something new and improved. Until Moshiach comes we must get back to dialoguing, brainstorming, exploring options, learning from each other, asking good questions and insisting on real science. Rather than merely blaming, coercing and demonizing, we need to do something different: Do our own thinking, not let mob thinking hijack your mind.

Two anecdotes. One: My husband started up a conversation in front of someones house in Raanana when this mans wife stuck her head out the window and yelled at him Put your mask on! Cant you see that he is haredi?

Another: My brother was in the Jerusalem shuk enjoying one of his favorite Israeli pastimes. Around the vegetable stall were gathered a hassid, a young secular man in a suit, a helmeted biker, a soldier in a knitted kippah, a Sephardi granny, and himself, an American psychiatrist.

Mazliach, the shopkeeper, called out to my brother, Nu, doctor, what will be? My brother looked up from the eggplants and smiled.

The knitted-kippah soldier yelled out It will be good! The secular-suit laughed and repeated the sentiment, Yes! it will be good!

The entire store, populated by very different Jews, laughed and said in unison, Yehiyeh beseder baseger (everything will be alright if we stay isolated).

Our column reflects Israeli society. Are we ready to call it quits? Will we not be able to expand ourselves beyond this version of us?

Pam Peled:

Ive found it impossible to have a coherent conversation about anything COVID, dress codes, conversion, conscription when one side has God on their side. Theres no arguing with God.

Im not anti-Jewish, or anti-religious. I get the beauty, the belonging, the being part of something bigger. Heres a factoid: Each day I study Daf Yomi, a page of Talmud. Im fascinated by the issues and the intricacies: If you eat on Shabbos and walk into a public domain without an eruv (boundary demarcation), are you carrying (the undigested food?) How should one handle passing wind while at prayer?

Ill be seriously unpopular for what I say next: While Im compelled by the daily Daf itself, the accompanying 40+ daily WhatsApps are even more illuminating. Women bond on Zoom over the trigonometry of balconies and sourdough starters; its not only the essence of the learning thats so gorgeous, its that were learning together. The process. The ponderings. The forming of friendships.

Getting up early each day to study Talmud creates a fabulous feeling of community. Even virtually. A recipe club has emerged, people share tractate-centered skits, and inspirational stories.

Most enviable to me is the easy appropriateness: the Baruch Dayan HaEmets (Blessed is the Judge of truth, said when someone dies) and Baruch Hashems (Thank God). This is religion at its very best: warm, embracing, supportive and fun. I sincerely feel that Id be happier, and maybe even healthier, and probably even married, if I could immerse myself in that level of belief and devotion.

But heres the rub: In Israel, all this admirable, safe, bagel-breakfast-siyum celebratory magic comes with a price. Religion is so rock-solidly intertwined with politics that it very soon segues into cynicism and the sinister. When men in big black hats and scraggly beards dictate who is a Jew and who can marry and divorce and be buried in the Jewish state; who is exempt from the army, and who can study in yeshivot when the rest of the country is stuck at home, thats when religion is not so warm and fuzzy anymore. And there is no way to discuss this rationally.

When Tzippi harangues me about whether I believe in God, I want to laugh, incredulously. What kind of a question? Its not so funny though when religion means believing you have the plot, and your plot is Gods plot. So whether its settling the West Bank, or behaving like a hilltop hooligan, or no buses on Shabbat, or that Russian sons of Jewish fathers can fight for Israel but not marry in her borders, theres no arguing with God. Especially if the coalition depends on your vote, and your party controls the purse strings.

Its lonely to stand outside the congregation; to abrogate the kiddushim, the communal hair-covering, and the Shanti Shabbat vibe. Somehow, in the Diaspora, it feels easier to have that community; no one demands, Do you believe in God?

Religion in Israel has been hijacked by cultists who are having multiple kids. Its impacting everyones lives. So we, the secular, are losing our connection to our culture and our rituals and our learning, which belong to all of us, whether we carry across an eruv or not.

I think Im a good Jew. I think Ive contributed to the Jewish state. I also think that religion, the way its often practiced here, is dangerous to our survival.

Its hard to reach consensus on much when one side believes that God is on their side. Its hard to even have a civil discussion.

Comments and questions: 3ladies3lattes@gmail.com

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Three Ladies, Three Lattes: Still coffee-ing after all these years - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on January 28, 2021

Rosh Chodesh Shevat began at sundown, Jan. 13. Weve just come out of the month in our history in which people strayed from belief and worship in one G-d. They began to worship idols because Moses hadnt come back down the mountain quickly enough and so they lost their hope and faith.

Currently we enter a time in which we need to restore our faith in G-d, and each other, more than ever. Shevat has always been designated for the tithing of trees. I looked up the word in the dictionary to learn the origin, and it referenced the practice of taking or paying a tithe, which was considered to be one tenth of annual produce or earnings that were taxed for the support of clergy and the church. It further stated that, in England, tithing referred to a group of ten householders who lived close together and were collectively responsible for each others behavior. Imagine that. Also imagine this month, giving one tenth of your attention to someone with another view, one tenth of your patience to someone who needs it, or one tenth in support of your synagogue, not only in donations, but in efforts through your hand and heart.

Tu BShevat, the 15th of Shevat, is the New Year of the Trees. We plant trees in our yard and in Israel. Tithing, in this instance, means that we calculate the age of the trees from Tu BShevat. In Leviticus 19:23-25, we learn that the fruits from a tree may not be eaten during the first three years. The fourth years fruit is for G-d, and then, beginning in the fifth year, the fruit may be eaten. This cultivates patience and respect for the trees, with the sweetness as a reward. Each year on Tu BShevat, the tree has its birthday.

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Kabbalists honor this month with a celebration seder that includes Torah, Talmud and mystical readings, four glasses of different wines to represent each season, and a sampling of foods from the seven species of native produce to Israel mentioned in the Torah. Those foods include wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey. Envision Hashem imbuing Divine essence into each of these foods for us to ingest.

The Zodiac sign of the month is Aquarius, the water carrier. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, when it is a dry season, the crescent moon tilts upward, as if holding water in a cup. When its rainy, the crescent moon faces down, as if pouring the water on to the land.

Tzadik is the Hebrew letter of the month. It means righteous one and focuses on justice. A righteous person, referred to as a tzadik, embodies the spiritual qualities of Divine energy and channels blessings that flow into the world.

According to Chabad Rabbi Aaron L. Raskin, two planets rule Shevat: Saturn, the planet of judgment, order, responsibility, discipline and laws, and Uranus, which elevates us to new consciousness and concepts beyond limitation. He states: This is why the Age of Aquarius and the month of Aquarius are considered times of change. Both are times of new knowledge, inventions, humanity, and charity.

The tribe is Asher, which was granted the fertile land of Galilee. It prospered from the olive oil of that region.

Taste is the featured sense. Its customary to try a new fruit this month or eat from the seven species.

The stomach is the controlling organ, digesting the food thats been consumed. We can open ourselves to digesting holy foods with our bodies, but also our minds and souls, as we embody the Divine and then radiate that love, beauty, and wisdom to our families, our community, to the people of our nation, and the world.

Meditation Focus: These are the words of Renewal Rabbi Arthur Waskow: We breathe, and the trees breathe. We breathe in what the trees breathe out. So we breathe each other into existence. We, and the galaxies, and the arrays of science and the codes of law and the plays of music, we are breathing each other into existence. And the breath, of course, goes in a cycle. What intention can you put on this breath?

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Live Intentionally This Shevat - Atlanta Jewish Times

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Posted By admin on January 28, 2021

ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the 1950 film Harvey, James Stewart plays a middle-aged man named Elwood whose best friend is a tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. The relationship causes problems with the people in Elwoods life. At one point a psychiatrist tries to convince him to struggle with reality. Elwood replies, I wrestled with reality for forty years and I am happy to state that I finally won. Im happy to tell you this story, Aries, because its a good lead in to my counsel for you: I suspect that one of your long wrestles with reality will yield at least a partial victory in the coming weeks. And it will be completely real, as opposed to Elwoods Harvey. Congratulations!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The light of the North Star takes a long time to reach us, even though its traveling 186,000 miles per second. The beams it shows us tonight first embarked when Shakespeare was alive on Earth. And yet that glow seems so fresh and pure. Are there any other phenomena in your life that are metaphorically comparable? Perhaps an experience you had months ago that is only now revealing its complete meaning? Or a seed you planted years ago that is finally ripening into its mature expression? The coming weeks will be an excellent time to take inventory of such things, Taurus. It will also be a favorable phase to initiate innovations that will take some time to become fully useful for you.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard had the great privilege of landing on the moon in a spacecraft, then walking on the lunar surface. How did he celebrate this epic holy adventure? By reciting a stirring passage from Shakespeare or the Talmud? By placing a framed photo of Amelia Earhart or a statue of Icarus in the dirt? By saying a prayer to his God or thoughtfully thanking the people who helped put him there? No. Shepard used this sublime one-of-a-kind moment to hit a golf ball with a golf club. Ill ask you not to regard him as a role model in the coming weeks. When your sacred or lofty moments arrive, offer proper homage and honor. Be righteously appreciative of your blessings.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): William Shakespeare worked with another playwright in creating three plays: Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen and Cardenio. The lucky collaborator was John Fletcher, who was popular and influential in his era. I propose that we name him one of your role models in 2021. Heres why: You will have an enhanced potential to engage in fertile partnerships with allies who are quite worthy of you. I encourage you to be on the lookout for opportunities to thrive on symbiosis and synergy.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Canadian journalist Nick Ashdown is amazed that white people in North America are so inhibited about revealing their real feelings. He writes, How bizarre that in English, the word emotional is used pejoratively, as though passion implies some sort of weakness. He marvels that the culture seems to worship nonchalance and regard intense expressiveness as uncool or unprofessional. Im going to encourage you to embody a different approach in the coming days. I dont mean to suggest that you should be an out-of-control maniac constantly exploding with intensity. But I do hope you will take extra measures to respect and explore and reveal the spirited truth about yourself.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo actor Ingrid Bergman appeared in three movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In Notorious, set after the end of World War II, she played the daughter of a Nazi spy. During the filming, Bergman had trouble with a particular scene. She explained her doubts to Hitchcock, saying, I dont think I can do that naturally. Hitchcock seemed receptive to her input, but in the end had an unexpected response: All right, he told her. If you cant do it naturally, then fake it. Im going to suggest that you follow Hitchcocks advice during the next two weeks, Virgo. Fake it till you make it is an acceptableprobably preferableapproach.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The seventeenth-century Libran polymath Thomas Browne had a brilliant, well-educated mind. He authored many books on various subjects, from science to religion, and was second only to Shakespeare in the art of coining new words. He did have a blind spot, however. He referred to sex as the trivial and vulgar way of union and the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life. Most of us have pockets of ignorance like thataspects that qualify as learning disabilities or intellectual black holes. And now and then there come times when we benefit from checking in with these deficiencies and deciding whether to take any fresh steps to wisen them up. Now is such a time for you.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it, declares actor and comedian Mindy Kaling. Is that an unromantic sentiment? Maybe. But more importantly, its evidence that she treasures her sleep. And thats admirable! She is devoted to giving her body the nurturing it needs to be healthy. Lets make Kaling your patron saint for now. Its a favorable time to upgrade your strategies for taking very good care of yourself.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): All of us go through phases when our brains work at a higher level than usual. Im guessing that youre about to enjoy one of these times. In fact, I wont be shocked if you string together a series of ingenious thoughts and actions. I hope you use your enhanced intelligence for important matterslike making practical improvements in your life! Please dont waste it on trivial matters like arguments on Facebook or Twitter.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Today the Capricorn artist Paul Czanne (18391906) is regarded as an important and influential painter. Early in his career, though, he was rejected and even ridiculed by critics. One reason was that he loved making still-life paintings, which were considered low art. Of his 584 works, about 200 of them were of inanimate, commonplace objects. Fruit was his specialty. Typically he might spend one-hundred separate sessions in perfecting a particular bowl of apples. Dont you want to take a vacation from painting fruit? he was asked. In response, he said that simply shifting the location of his easel in relation to his subject matter was almost more excitement than he could bear. Thats the kind of focused, detailed attitude I hope youll cultivate toward your own labors of love during the coming weeks, Capricorn.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): We all want everything to be okay, writes author David Levithan. We dont even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough. To that mediocre manifesto, I reply, okay. I accept that its true for many people. But I dont think it will apply to you Aquarians in the coming weeks. According to my assessment of your astrological potentials, you can, if you want, have a series of appointments with the fantastic, the marvelous, and the outstanding. Please keep those appointments! Dont skip them out of timidity or excess humility.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): DONTs: Dont keep scratching an old wound until it bleeds. Dont try to snatch away the teddy bear that belongs to the 800-pound gorilla. Dont try to relieve your tension by pounding your head against a wall. Dont try to convince a stone idol to show you some tenderness. DOs: Do ask supposedly naive questions that may yield liberating revelations. Do keep in mind that sometimes things need to be a bit broken before youll be motivated to give them all the care they need and deserve. Do extinguish the fire on a burning bridge, and then repair the bridge.

Homework: I believe that you cant get what you want from another person until youre able to give it to yourself. Do you think thats true? FreeWillAstrology.com.

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Free Will Astrology: Week of January 28, 2021 - Newcity

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project and founding partner of the grassroots organization End Jew Hatred, called for Zionist activists to change the narrative during Club Zs virtual summit.

Club Z, which calls itself a Zionism for Teens organization, held a summit on January 24 called #BreakFree Celebrating Zionism, Justice and Activism. Goldstein, who was the keynote speaker, noted that the past year has seen the rise of minority rights movements in the West and creating seismic shifts and changes with how the public views minorities, citing the Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ movements as examples. However, Jews and the Jewish community still have not mobilized themselves to achieve this type of effective change and the question is why.

She argued that this inertia is because the Jewish community frames the discussion of Zionism around a pro-Israel narrative. Goldstein called this a strategic mistake, because such discussions turn into a Middle East debate, thereby legitimizing the other side, which is the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement.

Instead, Goldstein suggested that Zionist activists need to frame the issue as a matter of opposing bigotry. She pointed to Jewish students on college campuses constantly subjected to a litmus test over the Israeli governments actions, which she said would be like asking a Muslim student to condemn the Iranian government in order to be included in spaces on college campuses.

Goldstein suggested that Zionist activists need to frame the issue as a matter of opposing bigotry.

The importance of Club Z, Goldstein said, is that it recenters what it means to be a Jewish advocate as a proud minority in this country deserving of equal protection under the law.

The summit then turned to a campus activist panel. The first speaker on the panel, former New York University (NYU) student Adela Cojab, spoke about how she filed a complaint against the university after an award was given to the NYU Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

Cojab said that prior to filing the complaint, she had spoken to university administrators multiple times about issues pro-Israel students had with SJP; this included SJP members allegedly assaulting a pro-Israel student and burning an Israeli flag during a Yom Haatzmaut rally. Cojab said she was initially petrified about suing the school and starting a scandal, but is now proud of what I did since she was able to change things for college students across the country.

The panel also featured Julia Jassey, who spoke about co-founding the Instagram account known as Jewish on Campus. She said that the account was necessary for Jewish students to voice theyve been being targeted and left out of classroom conversations due to their Zionist activism. Theres no one face to Zionism theres no one fac[e] to Judaism but were tied together by this common thread, she said.

Joshua Washington, director of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI), also spoke on the panel, explaining that Zionists tend to defend Israel by pointing out how the Jewish state has hospitals in the Gaza Strip and on the border with Syria to treat civilians. However, the anti-Israel crowd tries to invalidate such arguments by claiming that Israel was built on stolen land, Washington said. He added that its important to stand firmly on the truth that Jews are indigenous to the land.

Washington also said that he has made a lot of enemies for speaking out against Black Lives Matters anti-Israel agenda, but argued that he was only criticizing whats been said in their platform and in their leaders speeches. [I] dont like seeing my community being used for Jew-hatred, he said.

The summit concluded with a panel from high school students explaining the importance of Zionism.

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Club Z Summit Discusses Shifting the Zionist Narrative - Jewish Journal

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

The Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party held a forum recently called A Dialogue with Rising Activists, Xenophobia-Islamophobia-Transphobia-Colorism-Racism.

We noticed that antisemitism was left out of the mix and that no Jewish speakers were listed, but we figured antisemitism and other Jewish issues werent the focus, nor did they have to be. But since we are both members of the Progressive Caucus, we decided to attend, to listen, learn, and maybe engage.

Early on it did become clear that Jewish issues were a part of the forum; and though she was not listed on the promotional flier, Estee Chandler, the founder of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) LA, was the sole representative of the Jewish community.

What did we learn?

We learned that Estee Chandler hates Zionism, that antisemitism on the left does NOT existunless it is against people who share her viewsand if Jews dont agree with Chandler, then they are the oppressors. We also learned that money given to congressional candidates she doesnt support is (((Zionist money))).

We wondered whether Chandler was concerned with the rise of antisemitic hate crimes and the rise of hate crimes in California in general. After all, this is the Progressive Caucus of CALIFORNIA! We also thought it might have been of interest to participants to learn that based on the FBIs 2019 report of hate crimes, anti-Jewish incidents were the second-most common type, with California reporting the highest number nationally. But no mention of any of this from Ms. Chandler.

However, she did share something deeply troubling that happened to her when she was forming JVP LA. She was the recipient of a right-wing smear campaign that included a Wanted poster with her photo and naming her associates and young relatives. This is unacceptable and we condemn it entirely.

Unfortunately, we would never receive the same solidarity from Estee when Jews face open harassment from anti-Israel activists in the California Democratic Party. Not once has Chandler spoken up or expressed concern about conspiracy theories, ancient libels, and dual-loyalty claims directed at Jewish Democrats, for example: Israel has no right to exist, Zionism is racism, No civility to Nazis and no civility to Zionists, The state of Israel is a terrorist organization, or Be scared Zionist, the sword of the oppressed is being sharpened.

Additionally, when PZC hosted a solidarity rally against antisemitism at the November 2019 California Democratic Party Convention, the large contingent of JVP members present, though invited, were nowhere to be found.

But if left antisemitism doesnt exist in the mind of Estee Chandler, then perhaps everything intended to demean and harass certain Jews is also fine according to Chandler.

As members of the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party, we call on its leaders to better represent the diversity of the Jewish and Democratic progressive community, to stop demonizing Jews on the condition of their Zionism, and to feature Jews who support both Israel and Palestine; who stand against human rights abuses on either side, and who will work together with our Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters to build a lasting peace in the region. This cannot be accomplished by alienating the great majority of Jews in the party, by refusing dialogue, and advocating not for negotiations and a lasting peace but for unilateral actions that would destroy the one Jewish state in the world.

Progressive Zionists of California would be pleased to work with the Progressive Caucus leadership on this effort.

This blog was written by Matthew Finkelstein and Susan George.

Susan is the Executive Director of Progressive Zionists of California (PZC). She served as an Assembly District Delegate to the California Democratic Party in 2017 and 2018 and was a delegate for Bernie Sanders to the Democratic National Convention in 2016 and for Joe Biden in 2020. Susan lives in Vallejo, California in the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area with her partner Matthew Finkelstein--a founding Board member of PZC--and their dog Lenny.

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Normalize this! | Susan M. George | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

We all understand that this is a time of tremendous potential shift in the discourse of Palestine in the U.S. When Joe Biden comes in, liberal Zionists, who can take some credit for electing him, will make up the central branch of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is their friend. So is his deputy Wendy Sherman. So liberal Zionists will own our Israel policy.

And Biden along with liberal Zionists will be coming under huge pressure from the Democratic left, the Sandersite progressives who have been fighting for Palestinian rights in the halls of Congress, to actually do something at last for Palestinian freedom.

The latest sign of this pressure are the official reports saying Israel is enforcing apartheid, notably Yesh Din last July and BTselem last week. These follow a similar declaration years ago by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. And when Israel is declared apartheid state, theres one plain outcome: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

To this list of pressures Id add a brilliant analysis by Nathan Thrall in the London Review of Books, titled The Separate Regimes Delusion. Thralls thrust is that liberal Zionists have bolstered the persistence of apartheid by insisting that thats not happening in Israel, its only the West Bank. Israel is a democracy! There are two regimes here! Thralls piece is a careful and lacerating exposition of the damage caused by the claim that the two regimes can be separated. Apartheid has been the order of the day in Israel since 1948.

And: Thrall names names. The Jerusalem-based author of The Only Language They Understand (and recently-departed head of the Arab-Israeli project at International Crisis Group) calls out J Street, Peace Now, and New Israel Fund among others for trafficking in a lie that is crushing Palestinians lives.

The importance of this piece is underlined by Ken Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, who tweeted: Supporters of Israel shouldnt pretend that the government within its 1967 borders is somehow different from the government presiding over the occupied territories. Its one government with responsibility for its conduct between the river and the sea.

Lets go to Thralls points. Liberal Zionists brag that they killed annexation. I think thats true. Israel might have gone ahead if the Democratic Partys Israel lobby hadnt organized Democrats to oppose annexation. Thrall writes acidly that they didnt really care about democracy but Israels image and the danger of fostering BDS:

[L]iberal Zionist groups. reasons for opposing annexation were telling. Concern for human rights was often secondary to the harm annexation might do to Israel. They warned that it would damage the perception of Israel as a democracy. They urged Israelis not to give impetus to campaigns promoting boycotts or the reduction of economic and military aid, and cautioned that annexation would only widen the divide between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. And they brandished the spectre most feared by the Zionist left: that Israel will eventually be forced to give citizenship to all Palestinians living under its control

But what kind of democracy is it if millions of Palestinians are having their political fate shaped by Jewish Zionists? My emphasis:

Palestinians were almost entirely absent from the debate on annexation. The questions of whether they would get a state, what territory and powers it would have, whether they would be granted citizenship, residency or some other status in the annexed territory, what rights they would or would not be given and which of them would be stripped of their Israeli citizenship were being decided solely by coalition negotiations [in 2020] between two Zionist parties.

Annexation threatened the liberal Zionist figleaf: that all that bad shit is happening in another place, the occupation, which is a temporary military affair Even the fiercest critics of annexation, Thrall writes, described Israel as a functioning democracy.

He doesnt accept the distinction.

The premise that Israel is a democracy, maintained by Peace Now, Meretz, the editorial board of Haaretz and other critics of occupation, rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control. A conceptual wall must be maintained between two regimes: (good) democratic Israel and its (bad) provisional occupation. This way of thinking is of a piece with the general liberal Zionist belief that its legitimate to condemn Israeli settlements and even, for some, to boycott their products but not to call for reducing support to the government that planned, established and maintains them. What seemed most troubling about annexation for these groups was that it would undermine their claims that the occupation is occurring somewhere outside the state and that it is temporary, a 53-year-long departure from what liberal Zionist groups like the New Israel Fund call Israels liberal democratic founding values.

Thrall details the ways in which Israel is practicing apartheid in the West Bank, an argument familiar to our readers, and one that even liberal Zionists allow. But military occupation gives the liberal Zionists a legalistic copout. Theres two regimes, they say yes, for 53 years!

Thrall calls out J Street and its donors and acolytes, and the politicians it influences, for trafficking in falsehoods:

By asserting the existence of two regimes, liberal Zionist groups like J Street can tell donors, legislators and university students that they are pro-Israel, while criticising an occupation that allegedly exists somewhere beyond the state. But the attempt to separate Israel from the criticisms, and consequences, of its policies in the West Bank also leads to absurd and false assertions, such as J Streets recent claim that Israeli settlers are demolishing [Palestinian] homes. In fact, it is not the settlers one in ten Israeli Jews but the government of Israel, which J Street supports, that destroys Palestinian homes in the West Bank. The government does so at the behest of elected ministers and legislators.

The separate-regimes fiction allows liberal Zionists and their Democratic Party friends to cling to a supposed solution and avoid the undemocratic truth of both sides of the Green Line.

The fiction of separate regimes allows liberal Zionists to promote a politically correct two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines, while avoiding the more equitable remedy demanded by the recognition that the Israeli state extends to all the land under its control. Such a remedy would require not only an end to occupation but also to ethnic discrimination throughout the territory.

Liberal Zionists arent for equality. They use the separate regimes b.s. to preserve inequality in Israel, which is itself apartheid.

The Zionist left doesnt call for Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel to have full equality within pre-1967 Israel. Instead, leading liberal Zionist organisations seek to ensure Israel remains a Jewish-majority state that can continue to provide to its Jewish citizens land and immigration rights that are denied to citizens from the indigenous Palestinian minority.

Annexation was a threat because it would destroy the liberal Zionist claim that there is an apartheid regime in the West Bank separate from the Israeli state.

But this is a misunderstanding of the crime of apartheid as described in international law. Like torture, apartheid does not need to be applied uniformly or everywhere in a country to be criminal: in international law there is no such thing as an apartheid regime, just as there is no such thing as a torture regime. The word regime doesnt appear anywhere in the original 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Thrall goes on to say that the idea that only annexation will make Israel into an apartheid state has become intrinsic to left-wing Zionist ideology. For instance, a report from a thinktank headed by Zehava Gal-on of Meretz who is part of J Streets inauguration party tomorrow night says that even if Israel went forward with annexation that doesnt make it an apartheid state but rather a state operating a regime with apartheid characteristics in the occupied territories. Thrall blows that distinction up!

By this standard, apartheid South Africa was a democracy like all democracies, an imperfect one operating a regime with apartheid characteristics in the townships and Bantustans. Those Bantustans, incidentally, had their own flags, anthems, civil servants, parliaments, elections and a limited degree of autonomy not unlike that of the Palestinian Authority.

Thrall points out the importance of Europe and the U.S. to maintaining apartheid in Israel. The The U.S. and Europe have tirelessly maintained Israeli impunity for its actions at the UN and ICC.

He concludes by insisting on the South Africa parallel, going back to the founding of the state. And liberal Zionist responsibility.

European and American policymakers, together with the liberal Zionist groups that lobby them, maintain that the two-state solution isnt dead but merely embattled and, therefore, permanently alive. In the meantime, millions of Palestinians continue to be deprived of basic civil rights and subjected to military rule. With the exception of those six months in 1966-67, this has been the reality for the majority of Palestinians living under Israeli control for the entire history of the state. South Africas apartheid lasted 46 years. Israels is at 72, and counting.

Thats a devastating last line, and the piece is a devastating read, read it in full here.

Thralls broadside follows on several blows delivered by American Jews/former Zionists in the last year, Peter Beinart, Ian Lustick, and Jerome Slater, that suggest an erosion at last in the mainstream discourse of Palestine.

Of course, it is tragic and unfair that the dismantling of the Zionist idea is to be effected by Jews. But thats the other side of the coin of the lobby itself, which I maintain is the only game in town for Joe Bidens Middle East policy. For now anyway.

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Nathan Thrall calls out J St and other liberal Zionists for enabling apartheid Mondoweiss - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

On Wednesday, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office and a new era will dawn.

The last four years of Donald Trump's presidency were like a dream come true for Israel's right-wing.

Under his tenure many great things occurred, such as Israel's normalization treaties with four Arab nations. But the tight connection between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump has caused severe damage to Israel.

Then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden during a visit to Israel in 2016

(Photo: AFP)

With all due respect to the 70 million Americans who voted for him, the majority of the U.S. is disgusted with the outgoing president, with that number ballooning after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

Israel had traditionally managed to keep itself on neutral ground when it came to the political fighting between the Democrats and the GOP, but Netanyahu threw that tradition out of the window and now Jerusalem must embark on some serious damage control.

Joe Biden and his vice president Kamala Harris are clearly members of the Democratic Party's pro-Israel wing. We must remember that Harris was the one who led the Senate against then-U.S. President Barak Obama's choice to abstain during the UN vote on Resolution 2334 condemning Israel for its settlements in the West Bank.

U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris

(Photo: Getty Images)

But that support for Israel aside, two major issues are set to become points of contention between Biden's administration and whichever government is sitting in Jerusalem after the March 23 election.

The first issue is the West Bank settlements and outposts, with Biden expected to return to the traditional policies of previous administrations, namely, opposing them.

He will surely be against any new outposts founded in the last two decades, whose very existence is a violation of previous agreements signed between the governments of George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon in 2003, with the former prime minister being obligated to tear them down.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush meeting at the White House, April 2004

(Photo: AP)

The current right-wing bloc is not only not going to tear them down, but will allow more to be built and is now busy looking for legal loopholes to authorize those already in place.

The second issue will be Iran, with a wide political consensus in Israel that the 2015 nuclear deal was a bust and flawed from the beginning.

It is doubtful whether the agreement halted Iranian efforts to create a bomb, but it has given Tehran immense influence in the region, allowing it to expand its military capabilities in other fields and bolster its proxy groups in Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon.

An Iranian clergyman stands next to missiles and army troops in an undisclosed location in Iran

(Photo: AP)

Biden was a great supporter of the nuclear deal, but it is yet unclear in which direction he will go in the wake of Trump's withdrawal in 2018.

Israel's conduct will also influence Biden's decisions to a certain degree, given that Netanyahu has done everything in his power to lose all standing with the Democrats.

This destruction of ties is still one of Netanyahu's greatest strategic blunders.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama meeting at the White House in 2015

(Photo: Reuters)

It is doubtful whether the Biden White House will make any dramatic decisions regarding Iran by the March 23 vote, but any Israeli prime minister who follows after will have to learn from Netanyahu's mistakes and work on rebuilding that relationship.

During his eight years as vice president, Biden was many times the mediator between Obama and Netanyahu, the "good cop" to the president's "bad cop."

Serious drama between the incoming president and the prime minister is unlikely, given that Biden has spent many years in Congress as a man of compromise and negotiation.

Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel in 2016

(Photo: GPO)

It is also doubtful that he will immediately revisit the Iran nuclear deal and possibly jeopardize Trump's normalization agreements for Israel, despite voices from both in and out of his party calling for him to do so.

"I am a Zionist. You do not need to be Jewish to be a Zionist," Biden once said.

Being a Zionist does not mean supporting Israel's right-wing policies or turning Israel into a bi-national state with more and more settlements and outposts in the West Bank.

A Zionist is someone who supports Israel being a Jewish and Democratic state, and on Wednesday we will see two such people enter the White House.

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With Biden, Israel has a true Zionist in the White House - Ynetnews

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

As thousands gathered in Washington on Jan. 6 for the fateful Donald Trump rally that would end in the storming of the U.S. Capitol, an Israeli flag was spotted in the crowd, flying alongside flags championing the QAnon conspiracy, the III% militia movement, and other popular right-wing causes. The Bible says, if you bless Israel, you should be blessed, explained the protestor waving the flag, repeating a Bible verse beloved by the Christian Zionist movement. So, were a nation that supports Israel. Later, the flag was spotted directly outside the Capitol building during the siege, while another masked protestor sported a black-and-white Israeli flag sown onto his paramilitary vest, beside a pro-police Thin Blue Line flag.

This is hardly the first time the Israeli flag has appeared at a right-wing rally in the United States that has seemingly little to do with Middle East politics. The flag has flown alongside the Confederate flag at an Arkansas neo-Confederate rally, and outside apartment units from Manhattan to Jerusalem; it has been spotted at a Straight Pride parade in Boston, and a pro-Trump car caravan.

While the Trump presidency is now over, the right-wing movements that helped define his time in office, and that stormed the Capitol with their culture of conspiracism, grievance politics, xenophobic scapegoating, and vigilante violence arent going away anytime soon. For right-wing groups in the United States, Israel has become a symbol for a set of values, an entire worldview that, while sometimes grounded in concrete support for Israel and its policies, often transcends any geopolitical reality and takes on a life of its own. Indeed, different parts of the U.S. right use the Jewish state as a canvas to project their own fantasies of nationalist chauvinism, Christian redemption, white pride, and antisemitic conspiracism. And none of these roles, in fact, turn out well for Jews, for Palestinians, or for the prospects of a just peace in the Middle East.

It is well-known that Israel enjoys firm support not only on the U.S. right but across the mainstream political spectrum, due to strategic geopolitical interests, the profit motives of the military-industrial complex, and other factors. [Israel] is the best $3 billion investment we make, remarked then-Senator Joe Biden in 1986, explaining that if there werent an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region. The special relationship between the United States and Israel is championed by leaders of both countries, alongside odes to supposed shared Judeo-Christian values of pioneer-settler exceptionalism, liberty and democracy.

For the ascendant forces of right-wing populism in the United States and around the world, however, support for Israel takes on a special intensity. Israel is celebrated as a front-line defender of Western civilization in its crusade against radical Islam. It is viewed as a nation that embodies the strong arm of xenophobic nationalism and militarized masculinity, unapologetically pushing back invading ethno-religious Others, expanding its territory, and protecting its heritage in bold defiance of a chorus of liberal outcry. The Israeli and U.S. right share a desire, as Palestinian writer Nada Elia put it, to establish and maintain a homogeneous society that posits itself as superior, more advanced, more civilized than the others who are, unfortunately, within its midst, a demographic threat to be contained through border walls and stricter immigration law.

A robust Israeli-American conservative nexus, led by intellectuals like Yoram Hazony, think tanks like PragerU, and foundations like the Tikvah Fund, often lauds Israel as a kind of primordial archetype, embodying a Biblically rooted religio-nationalist ideal that sits at the very foundation of the West itself. In revolt against a globalist world order of open borders and international homogenization, the idea of Israel signifies, for many across the global far-right, the insistence that strong nations shall retain their sovereignty, police their borders, preserve their identities and reject the meddling of international bodies and human rights standards.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hold a Rubiks Cube at the Hungary-Israel Business Forum in Budapest, Hungary, July 19, 2017. (Haim Zach/GPO)

This right-wing Zionism fits comfortably alongside simmering currents of antisemitism. Far-right leaders from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his son Yair, to Hungarys Viktor Orbn and the U.S.s Donald Trump demonize named enemies like George Soros and globalists with the well-worn tropes of modern antisemitism, as embodying a subversive liberal agenda of open borders, cosmopolitanism and racial justice. Evoking dual loyalty tropes, Trump frequently seems to regard his American Jewish supporters as primarily loyal to Israel, or even as temporarily displaced Israelis, while denigrating liberal Jewish Americans as disloyal.

For millions of right-wing Christians, meanwhile, an almost fanatical love for Israel is infused with fever dreams of an apocalyptic End Times scenario, where the Jewish state is plunged into cataclysmic war and its ingathered Jews are forced by a resurrected Christ to convert or perish, all while the triumphant Christian faithful are raptured to heaven. As many have noted, this philosemitic Christian Zionism carries deep undercurrents of anti-Judaism, accentuated by the increasing tendency of many believers to wrap themselves in Jewish religious garb and iconography. The morning of the Jan. 6 coup, for example, a group of Christian right leaders held a Jericho March the name itself evoking the Biblical narrative of a group of warriors laying siege to a walled city on the streets of Washington, calling on participants to pray, march, fast and rally for election integrity, according to a cached version of the groups website. Later, one rioter, perhaps cosplaying as an ancient Biblical warrior, blew a shofar, a hollowed out rams horn which is sounded on important Jewish occasions, through the shattered windows of the Capitol building.

Across the radical currents of the U.S. right, support for Israel becomes increasingly mixed with open antisemitism, creating a complex ambivalence. For the varied groups that make up the U.S. militia movement driven by a blend of Second Amendment paranoia, conspiracies of New World Order tyranny, anti-government libertarianism, and dogged support for Trump Israel is often respected as an impressively hyper-militarized society, aligned with the United States on the cosmic battleground against this or that demonic, totalitarian Other. One world government is coming to a country near you very soon.America, one commenter proclaimed on a members-only forum of the III% militia movement, and the only thing standing in their way is We The People of the USA and Israel. Given the deep antisemitism underlying such conspiracies, however, there is no guarantee that the Jewish state will end up on the side of the good and virtuous. Israel, the banking Cabal & the Deep State are all one multi-tentacled enemy to our American spirit of Freedom, imo [in my opinion], opined another member on the same forum.

A parallel ambivalence is on display for the Proud Boys, an ultra-misogynist fraternity notorious, in the Trump era, for entrenched street battles against antifa, a term short for anti-fascists that describes far-left activists who confront neo-Nazis and white supremacists at protests. On the one hand, the groups chest-thumping appeals to Western chauvinism dovetail comfortably with Israeli hypermasculinity, and a Proud Boys Israel chapter, formed in 2018, was quickly tokenized by the U.S. group to bolster its image of diversity. One Proud Boys website featured an article by an Israeli Proud Boy, tying support for gun rights in America to the ethos of Zionism. Self preservation is what got us [Israelis] here, claims Based Israeli, his moniker referencing an alt-right slang term used approvingly when non-whites profess reactionary ideas. Its what created the west and America, in all its glory, he adds.

Proud Boys marching in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 (Elvert Barnes Photography/CC BY-SA 2.0)

At the same time, plenty of white nationalists have traveled in the Proud Boys milieu, and for them, as we shall see, antisemitic anti-Zionism tends to reign supreme. In one recent example, a white nationalist named Kyle Chapman claimed to lead a breakaway Proud Goys faction of the group, referring to the Hebrew term for non-Jews, pledging to confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization. A popular unofficial Proud Boys channel on the messaging app Telegram, meanwhile, carries multiple posts decrying wars for Israel in the middle east, which it claims are supported by Israel First politicians who are disloyal to America.

For Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, meanwhile, coarse stereotypes demeaning Israeli Jews serve as edgy accessories to Zionist chauvinism. In a 2017 video filmed during a trip to Israel, McInnes mocked the countrys whiny, paranoid fear of Nazis (while flirting with Holocaust denial), and decried the Hebrew language as spit-talk. At the same time, he declared that his biggest problem with Israel is they are not proud enough. They need to stop apologizing and say, This is our land. We deserve it, oh, and we love our wall.

The white nationalist movement, meanwhile, is deeply divided on the Israel question, which for them is shot through with antisemitism at the foundation. Most white nationalists insist that the Jewish diaspora is the driving force behind white genocide, the demographic great replacement of the white race, and that Jews have long engineered non-white immigration, Black freedom movements, gender and sexual liberation, cultural relativism, and a host of other anti-white phenomena, including neoconservative support for Israel, in order to accomplish this goal.

At the same time, some emulate Israel as an enviable example of the successful creation, by a dispossessed people, of its own ethnostate one that continues to unapologetically take its own side in ethnic conflict. Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer has referred to himself on Israeli television as a white Zionist, and has described his longed-for white ethnostate as an Altneuland an old, new country, borrowing the phrase of Theodor Herzl, considered the founder of modern political Zionism. I have great admiration for Israels nation-state law, he said in 2018. Jews are, once again, at the vanguard, rethinking politics and sovereignty for the future, showing a path forward for Europeans. The alt-right writer Bronze Age Pervert, in a discussion of the European nationalist influences of the early Zionist project, noted sympathetically that Israel is a state founded for the sake of racial survivalits spiritual foundation and reason for existence is national socialist through and throughIsraeli nationalism and white nationalism are the same thing.

Prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer at the Ronald Reagan Building, Washington, D.C., on November 19, 2016 (Vas Panagiotopoulos/CC BY 2.0)

Many white nationalists long for a world where each race occupies its own homogenous ethnostate. In that schema, Zionism represents the straightforward application of this ethnopluralist principle to the Jewish race, a solution which would conveniently empty the United States and Europe of its undesirable Jewish populations. I do not oppose the existence of Israel, explained white nationalist Greg Johnson with chilling precision. I oppose the Jewish diaspora in the United States and other white societies. I would like to see the white peoples of the world break the power of the Jewish diaspora and send the Jews to Israel, where they will have to learn how to be a normal nation.

Even while expressing grudging admiration for the idea of Israel, white nationalists decry U.S. support for the Jewish state a key obstacle to their America First isolationism and a glaring symptom, to them, of the sinister grip of a Jewish power that wields covert control over U.S. foreign policy. Mocking the MAGA movement as MIGA Make Israel Great Again many charge that a disloyal, neoconservative Jewish cabal has long subverted the GOP from within, turning it, in the words of Johnson, into a vehicle for advancing Jewish interests around the world, especially in the Middle East. Conservative adoration of Israel, Johnson explains elsewhere, is merely a form of sublimated white racial nationalismSo lets leave the Jews to their racial nationalism and have our own instead.

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Even while noting their affinity for the idea of Israel, white nationalists detest Jewish Zionists who, with a quintessentially Jewish duplicity, condemn whites for even daring to think about the subject [of ethno-nationalism], as one writer on the white nationalist site Counter-Currents put it, but freely allow Jews not only to express their desires for, but to actually have, their own ethnostate. Beneath ironic alt-right slogans like open borders for Israel lurks the accusation that Jews uphold these double standards intentionally, scheming to ensure the survival of their own tribe while furthering white genocide in the West.

Finally, plenty of white nationalists dispense with any pretense of admiration, and demonize Israel with virulently antisemitic forms of anti-Zionism. Israel becomes for them the nerve center of global demonic Jewish power, its oppression of Palestinians emblematic of eternal Jewish qualities of tribalism, dominance and aggressiveness. While the entire world has figuratively become an open air prison camp under the Jewish oligarchs, wrote white nationalist Matthew Heimbach, Palestine is literally an open air prison camp. While the whole world is under the Jewish financial machine, Israel blockades and inspects everything going in and out of Palestine. Conspiracies blaming Israel and Mossad for 9/11, the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and a host of other world events abound in these circles, alongside condemnations of ZOG or Zionist Occupation Government, a decades-old white nationalist name for the U.S. government which shows that the term Zionism, for them, is simply a floating signifier for the international Jew itself.

The resentment of white nationalists notwithstanding, it is likely that the U.S. and Israeli right will remain deeply entangled, and the Israeli flag will continue to appear regularly at right-wing rallies for some time. This hardly means, however, that the pro-Israel right possesses real respect for Jewish people. Were they to cease treating Israel as a canvass upon which to project any number of reactionary ideologies, they would be forced to reckon with the real humanity and lived experiences of Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and to confront the concrete reality of ongoing occupation, apartheid and dispossession. Indeed, such a reckoning is a necessary step on the road to a just and lasting peace for all who dwell between the river and the sea.

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How the Israeli flag became a symbol for white nationalists - +972 Magazine

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On Wednesday, Jan. 20, ASUCR held their third senate meeting of the quarter in which the senate tabled a controversial bill submitted by Students Supporting Israel that aimed to have UCR adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

Members of the student body spoke out against the bill through social media, claiming that the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism promoted Zionism and hindered the free speech of students. According to the IHRA, the working definition for anti-Semitism states, Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities, and one of those manifestations may be, the targeting of the state of Israel. A number of students criticized Students Supporting Israels attempt to adopt this definition on-campus, claiming that it would infringe upon the freedom of speech of Palestinian students and their right to criticize the state of Israel and Zionism.

I 100% stand against anti-semitism on campus, I would just like them to not use the IHRA definition because it is anti-Palestine, wrote one student on their Instagram page.

As the lead sponsor of SR-W21-002 Resolution Against Anti-Semitism, President Pro Tempore Orlando Cabalo motioned to remove the resolution from the meeting agenda, stating that he spoke to various individuals on both sides of the debate and decided it would be best to table it for now.

During Public Forum, UCR student Samia Alkam acknowledged that she was in disapproval of the resolution. She commended the senate for listening to student concerns and vowing to find a new resolution to combat anti-Semitism on campus while also protecting students free speech. She added that combatting discrimination on campus is one of her top priorities as a student.

UCR alumni and 2020 graduate, Shawn Heavlin also spoke out in opposition of the proposed resolution. He thanked the senate for agreeing to table the resolution but proceeded to read the comment he had prepared prior to the meeting. Heavlin argued that adopting the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism was also adopting the policies and practices of former President Donald Trump and his white supremicist ideologies. He added that if the senate had agreed with the bill, students could be formally accused of anti-Semitism for repeating the official view of the Israeli human rights organization BTselem, which announced this week that it would begin referring to Israel an an apartheid state.

During Public Comment, at the end of the meeting, primary author of SR-W21-002 David Smith expressed his disappointment in the students response to the senate resolution. He opposed the comparison made to white supremacy, stating that the definition does not limit freedom of speech because people still have the right to criticize a country for its actions; what the resolution aimed to do was give a clear understanding and definition of what is considered anti-Semitism.

Finally, President of Students for Justice in Palestine Summaya Khugyani added that she also agrees that there should be better protections against discrimination for Jewish students on campus but she is opposed to the IHRA definition because it equates anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism.

During Ex-Officio reports, Vice President of External Affairs Vincent Rasso discussed a letter that he and other members of the Executive Cabinet drafted to Chancellor Wilcox and Interim Provost Thomas Smith in response to the Jan. 11 announcement that the University of California plans to host in-person classes for fall 2021. The letter details a list of demands for campus administration regarding academic continuity, COVID-19 vaccine and testing accessibility, student health, wellness and basic needs and addresses concerns regarding policing and campus safety. The letter proposes the establishment of a COVID-19 Impact Working Group tasked to understand the situations students may be struggling with and to expand UCR resources such as the RPantry, CalFresh, Basic Needs, The Well and Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). In response, Interim Provost Smith expressed his appreciation for the letter as campus administration begins to design scenarios for fall that best support students learning needs and prioritize their health and safety.

Ori Liwanag, campaign coordinator for CALPIRG, updated the senate on their outreach efforts from the past week. Over 1,000 students expressed interest in CALPIRGs campaigns for winter quarter, and they were able to host their biggest kickoff meeting that the UCR Chapter has ever had with 217 participants in total; this is the second largest kickoff across the state in CALPIRGs history.

Vice President of Sustainability Vanessa Gomez-Alvarado explained a large scale initiative grant that she recently applied to on behalf of GCAP, in collaboration with the RGarden and Agricultural Operations. The $40,733 grant aims to begin commercial green waste composting at UCR in a project called the Aerated Static Pile Compost Project. The project would significantly reduce the university waste, carbon emission and offer agricultural support. The project will occupy unused land located at the Agricultural Operations facilities across from Lot 30. The grant was approved with a vote of 16-0-1.

During the LRCs report, the senate approved two resolutions authored by CHASS Senator Mufida Assaf in order to clarify certain rules and regulations regarding internships for credit. SR-F20-003 Proposition to Give Students a Choice in Deciding Between S/NC & Letter Grade Grading Basis for Internships aims to adopt the internship models of UC Davis and UC Berkeley. The resolution states that internships should be evaluated using the S/NC grading system because it serves as a better representation of the experiences students gain from their internships. ASUCR will contact the Academic Senate and the deans of every college in order to advocate for the alteration.

SR-W21-004 Proposition to Include Internships as a Part of Achieving a Position on the Deans and Chancellors Honor List outlines that the current requirements for achieving a place on the Deans Honor List are unclear and suggests that UCR adopt the requirements of UCLA which includes internships that receive a letter grade as eligible. In contrast to the last resolution, only students who choose to have their internships evaluated on a letter grade basis will be able to include it as a qualification for the Deans Honor List. Both motions passed with a vote of 17-0-0.

SB-W21-001 Process for the Suspension of ASUCR Committees was authored by Personnel Director Sean Nguyen; its purpose is to create a formalized process for the suspension and reinstatement of committees within ASUCR. Student engagement for the committees within ASUCR has decreased since the start of the pandemic, Nguyen suggested that the personnel director oversee the process of suspending committees that do not receive proper attention or engagement. The committee would have the opportunity to be reinstated if they received adequate engagement in the future. SB-W21-001 was approved with a vote 17-0-0.

Being their first State of the Association meeting of the quarter, ASUCRs Executive Cabinet (ECAB) members then provided updates on upcoming events along with their plans for future legislation.

ASUCR President Luis Huerta stated that he has been meeting with various campus entities during winter quarter to advocate for the efforts of ASUCR. He recently met with Academic Senate Chair Jason Stajich to establish communication regarding previous ASUCR legislation meant to improve academic continuity and flexibility for students by requiring that professors record and upload all lectures. Huerta stated that some professors expressed opposition due to the possibility of making mistakes during class that they would not want to have on record. He assured the senate that he will be working with the Academic Senate to continue to advocate for efforts to academic flexibility. Huerta has also been meeting with the Chancellors Free Speech Working Group to discuss the use of a campus-wide module to educate students about what is and is not protected under the First Amendment.

According to Huerta, no decision has been made regarding the Budget and Advisory Committees previous recommendation to cut the athletic programs at UCR but he will provide updates as he receives them. He also discussed the allocation of $20,000 to the Short Term Grocery Support program offered by the Basic Needs office, where students in need are able to apply to receive a $50 grocery gift card twice per month.

Rasso updated the senate on his efforts throughout winter quarter as well. On Jan. 9, he chaired the UC Student Associations board meeting where they discussed important topics relating to students across the UC system. One of these topics was the modernization of the Cal Grant, which currently only covers students who have recently graduated high school, excluding formerly incarcerated students and students who have been out of high school for some time. They also discussed the long term strategy for UC Basic Needs as well as the UC Mental Health Coalition. The Office of External Affairs has many upcoming events planned, including the Students of Color Conference on Jan. 30 to Jan. 31. Rasso will be speaking on a panel at the UC Office of the President (UCOP) Campus Safety Symposium on Feb. 2. On Feb. 4, the vice presidents of external affairs of all UCs will be meeting with UC President Michael Drake to update each other on their efforts.

The Transfer and Non-Traditiional Director Kaitylyn Hall stated that her committee is currently focusing on advocacy for student-parents on campus which includes advocating for Falkirk to become family student housing.

With ASUCR elections season around the corner, Elections Director Lama Yassine announced to the senate that students are now able to file for candidacy. Yassine and the elections committee created a Candidacy Manual where students who are interested in running can learn more about the ASUCR positions.

Executive Vice President Natalie Hernandez, provided an update on behalf of the Office of Internal Affairs as well. They have been planning and executing various efforts across social media to bring awareness to mental health resources on campus relating to anxiety and stress. The office is working to create a survey titled Word of Advice where fourth-year students will be able to leave messages of advice to first year students and they will continue to add to their Highlander of the Week segment on social media. Hernandez stated that they are also working on a logo rebrand for ASUCR this quarter that encapsulates everything that represents UCR, from paying homage to the native land the campus resides on to highlighting UCRs diverse student body.

During Roundtable and Announcements, CHASS Senator Lizbeth Marquez announced that she has started a new club on campus with the help of a Media and Cultural Studies professor called Transformative Justice at UCR. The new club is dedicated to teaching individuals about transformative justice, promoting alternatives to punishment and policing and providing support for those who have experienced violence, both within the university and outside of it. They are currently doing outreach for new members and encourage students who are interested to reach out to them through their Instagram page.

Before adjourning the meeting, President Pro Tempore Cabalo once again thanked all community members for voicing their opinion on SR-W21-001 and stated that he hopes to bring back a resolution that both sides can support.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:23 p.m.

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Posted By admin on January 26, 2021

Fordham Universitys Lincoln Center campus. Photo: Jonathan71 via Wikimedia Commons.

Students at Fordham University are appealing a December court ruling that allowed the school to ban the anti-Zionist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on campus seeking to take the case to the highest court in New York.

We believe in the students right to organize for Palestinian rights and will support them every step of the way, said Radhika Sainath, senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, which petitioned the New York Court of Appeals on Friday along with other groups.

In 2015, Fordhams SJP chapter was denied recognition after Dean of Students Keith Eldredge said he could not support an organization whose sole purpose is advocating political goals of a specific group, and against a specific country, when these goals clearly conflict with and run contrary to the mission and values of the University.

At the time, Eldredge cited SJPs support for the for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as antithetical to the universitys values.

January 26, 2021 10:13 am

In Dec. 2020, the Supreme Court of New Yorks appellate division overturned a 2019 ruling that would have granted recognition to the campus group. While the 2020 decision turned on a technical issue of standing, the judge said that even if the court had reached the merits of the students claims, it would have allowed Fordham to ban the group.

The university was not unreasonable, the judge wrote, in concluding that that the proposed club, which would have been affiliated with a national organization reported to have engaged in disruptive and coercive actions on other campuses, would work against, rather than enhance, respondents commitment open dialogue and mutual learning and understanding.

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Banned Anti-Zionist Student Group at Fordham University Will Appeal Ruling to Highest Court in New York State - Algemeiner

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