Tamara Zieve
Jpost
March 30, 2017

Campus antisemitism watchdog the AMCHA Initiative has unveiled four interactive maps that aim to expose sites of anti-Jewish activity at college campuses across the US.

The maps can help one understand the distribution and geographical patterns of anti-Jewish incidents, AMCHA said on Wednesday.

The Antisemitism Tracker Map includes all types of antisemitic incidents that were reported on US campuses since 2015.

The Swastika Tracker Map homes in on swastikas and graffiti, signs, posters and letters found on campus since 2015, that call for killing Jews, such as “Kill all kikes,” “Gas Jews die” and “Gas the kikes.”

The other two maps deal with BDS activity: One shows voting results of campus boycott resolutions from 2012 until today and the other maps faculty members who have signed one or more public documents endorsing an academic boycott of Israel. This map also contains subdivisions that calculate the number of faculty members who support the boycott per school, and their names.

The initiative comes after the Knesset passed a law earlier this month that allows the interior minister to ban foreigners who support the boycott of Israel from entering the country.

AMCHA told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that its new maps had no connection to the law and that the NGO has not taken a position on the legislation.

“AMCHA is not an organization trying to protect Israel but to protect Jewish students,” Tammi Rossman- Benjamin, AMCHA Initiative founder and director, told the Post.

She added that research has shown that there is a strong correlation between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish hostility on campus.

“In 2015 and 2016, acts of anti-Jewish hostility were nearly three times as likely to occur on campuses where BDS was present, and four times more likely to occur on campuses with one or more faculty members who endorsed an academic boycott of Israel, i.e., a boycott of Israeli universities and scholars,” she pointed out.

“In fact, the more faculty boycotters and BDS activity, the more incidents of anti-Jewish hostility on a particular campus.”

She noted that the lists of faculty members who have endorsed a boycott of Israeli academics have been available on the California-based AMCHA’s website since 2014.

“The antisemitism plaguing our nation’s colleges and universities continues to grow,” Rossman-Benjamin said in a statement. “One of AMCHA’s main goals, one we take very seriously, is documenting and exposing the threat.

“We hope these new education and research tools will prove helpful to advocacy organizations, government officials, university administrators, researchers and concerned parents, students and university stakeholders.”

She encouraged US students to take an active role in documenting any antisemitism they witness, by uploading pictures to a new photo gallery section on AMCHA’s Facebook page.

“It’s one thing to read about antisemitic incidents; it’s quite another to see them. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words,” she said, expressing hope that the social media tools would help generate awareness of the situation.

Also addressing this issue on Wednesday, Aviva Vogelstein, attorney for the Washington-based Louis D.

Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, testified at a hearing at the Tennessee General Assembly about the spike in campus antisemitism and urged lawmakers to pass a recently introduced bill to address the threat.

“Valid monitoring, informed analysis, and effective policy-making start with uniform definitions,” said Vogelstein. “The use of a uniform definition serves several important public policy objectives: enhancing clarity of policy and predictability of enforcement, improving prevention by increasing consistency, and facilitating comparison of intervention and prevention programs across jurisdictions and data collections.”

Kenneth L. Marcus, the Brandeis Center’s founding president, said, “A resurgence in antisemitism has been spreading across our nation of late. It is particularly rampant on college campuses and, sadly, Tennessee has not been immune to this escalating hatred.”

Original Article

Chas Sisk
Nashville Public Radio
March 30, 2017

When does criticism of the nation of Israel cross into anti-Semitism?

Tennessee lawmakers are wrestling with that question as part of the debate over a measure that takes aim at the University of Tennessee, over its handling of some comments by Muslim students that critics say constituted hate speech.

The dispute goes back to August, when several UT-Knoxville students were accused of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

Aviva Vogelstein, a lawyer with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, says a clear message needs to be sent that such comments aren’t acceptable.

“We frequently find that universities fail to treat anti-Semitism with the same resolve they apply to other problems because they lack a uniform standard for determining what is anti-Semitic and what is not,” she says.

That’s where the Tennessee General Assembly comes in. The Brandeis Center wants lawmakers to write a definition of anti-Semitism into state law. House Bill 885 would place the definition alongside bans on sexual harassment and hazing on campuses.

The Brandeis Center is not the only group pushing the proposal. Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, a pro-Israel group based in Nashville that’s perhaps best known for trying to block construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro several years ago, claims UT-Knoxville supports terrorism through student groups that it says are affiliated with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Nashville Democrat Mike Stewart says there’s no evidence to support that.

“Apparently some students got together and said, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,'” he says. “I mean, I don’t really think that’s evidence of UT harboring or supporting terrorists.”

Whether such statements amount to hate speech is at the crux of the debate. The Brandeis Center says they do, when they imply violence toward Jewish people or call into question Jewish loyalties.

But some lawmakers say a ban on them would shut down all debate over the Middle East on Tennessee’s campuses. They delayed a vote on the measure until next week to give the University of Tennessee time to respond.

The school says in a prepared statement that “the safety and well-being of its students is a top priority” and it is focused on creating a welcoming environment.

“Any suggestion to the contrary is not reflective of our Knoxville campus or the greater Knoxville community,” it says. “We encourage and support dialogue among all of our students to promote better understanding and respect for differing points of view.”

The university adds it looks forward to giving lawmakers more facts about the issue at future hearings.

Original Article

Amanda Koehn
Cleveland Jewish News
March 27, 2017

After an Israeli-American teenager was arrested on March 23 for allegedly perpetrating more than 100 bomb threats targeting Jewish institutions, Jewish community leaders expressed relief, while some experts questioned the motives behind the anti-Semitic crimes.

Michael Kaydar, 19, allegedly perpetrated threats in the U.S. and abroad using technology like Google Voice, a call forwarding service, and Bitcoin, a digital currency. He was arrested at his home in Ashkelon in southern Israel. His father has also since been detained on the suspicion that he was aware of his son’s alleged crimes.

“We are glad that a suspect has been arrested because what’s been going on with the bomb threats has been extremely disruptive and terrifying,” said Anita Gray, Cleveland regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.

Gray said despite the fact that Kaydar is Jewish, the impact of his crimes are still “terribly great” and anti-Semitic in nature.

“When a perpetrator selects an institution simply because it is a Jewish institution, it’s a hate crime and we consider that anti-Semitic,” she said.

Kaydar has a “very serious medical condition” that could have affected his behavior, according to his lawyer, Galit Besh, the Times of Israel reported. Local Israeli media reported that the condition was a nonmalignant brain tumor.

More than 150 bomb threats have been called or emailed to Jewish institutions since the beginning of 2017, including the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood. The Mandel JCC received bomb threats March 12 and Feb. 20 and released a statement signed by its board chair Alan B. Semel and president and CEO Michael G. Hyman after the arrest.

“Mandel JCC is both thankful and relieved an arrest has been made in connection with the over 150 hoax bomb threats terrorizing Jewish institutions since the beginning of the year,” the statement read.

According to the statement, the Mandel JCC will continue to maintain its current security measures.

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland also released a statement on the arrest, signed by its board chair Gary L. Gross.

“We are grateful to the FBI, and all other authorities locally, nationally, and internationally who played a role in apprehending this subject,” the Federation’s statement read.

The Daily Beast reported that Kaydar used a program called SpoofCard which masked his caller ID and made him “virtually untraceable” for months. He was caught after he forgot to trace his internet connection through a proxy server, which allowed the police to find his IP address and directed them to his home, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“From what I understand, he was very good at this craft – if that’s what you call it,” Gray said.

Gray also said she has “utmost respect” for law enforcement who found the perpetrator.

Kenneth L. Marcus, the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., said there are several reasons someone who is Jewish may commit an anti-Semitic crime, such as this one. The Brandeis Center is a Jewish civil rights advocacy group and Marcus will speak at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland 4:30 p.m. March 29.

“It might be a disturbed individual in which case it’s not so much about reason as their mental condition,” Marcus said.

Moreover, Marcus said that in some circumstances, Jews harbor ill will toward the Jewish people and perpetuate anti-Semitism, despite their belonging to the religious and ethnic group. On the other hand, he said he has seen cases where minorities create hoaxes to draw attention to an issue affecting their group. He said while it is rare in the Jewish community, such hoaxes are problematic because people who were already skeptical about the veracity of such issues affecting the minority become even more convinced the problem is invented.

“My biggest concern is that this will hamper the momentum that we have in fighting back against the widespread issues of actual anti-Semitism and hatred,” Marcus said. “This may make it too easy for people who don’t want to deal with bias to say it is all made up.”

Hours after the arrest on March 23, a JCC in Dallas, Texas, received a bomb threat, according to JTA.

The Times of Israel also reported that Kaydar allegedly made more than 1,000 total threats over the past two years and is thought to be behind two threats to Delta Airlines that resulted in the grounding of planes.

The Times of Israel report also said that although the investigation into Kaydar was ongoing for the past two years, the arrest was only made possible once FBI investigators arrived in Israel several weeks ago. Kaydar may be extradited to the U.S. and the Times of Israel reported that Israel will likely comply.

Marcus said the suspect’s mental health should have bearing on how he is treated by the criminal justice system. He said now, it’s important to redouble efforts to fight rising anti-Semitism, particularly on college campuses and cemetery desecration. Moreover, while right-wing extremists were early scapegoats for the bomb threats, Marcus said it’s important to note that anti-Semitic bias exists on both the left and right.

“In general we tend to be more sensitive to bias that is furthest from ourselves,” he said. “The challenge is to be equally sensitive to all forms of bias.”

Original Article

JNS.Org
March 10, 2017

(JNS.org) South Carolina lawmakers voted 103-3 to overwhelmingly to approve a bill that will help school administrators better combat anti-Semitism at state universities.

“Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise across America and especially on our college campuses,” said South Carolina State Representative Alan Clemmons, who authored and cosponsored the bill.

“I believe this is an overdue and appropriate response that will strengthen our state’s preparedness to deal with acts of anti-Semitism,” he said.

The bill, H.3643, ensures legal protections for Jewish students by using the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, while providing South Carolina’s state universities with the means to fight anti-Jewish discrimination.

Kenneth Marcus, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, had testified at the South Carolina House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing in support of the legislation. He said the bill’s passage comes at a crucial time amid growing anti-Semitism throughout the country.

“We applaud the South Carolina legislators for standing up against this growing anti-Jewish bigotry, and in a way that fully protects free speech on campus,” Marcus said.

“We congratulate Representative Clemmons, his colleagues in the Israel Allies Caucus and the Israel Allies Foundation for their successful efforts to fight discrimination on campus,” he added.

The bill will now be sent to the South Carolina Senate for approval. .

Original Article