Alex Joffe
SPME: BDS Monitor

April was an extremely active month for BDS thanks to the confluence of Passover, ‘Apartheid Week,’ Israel Independence Day, and Israel’s 70th anniversary. Several BDS resolutions were approved in student governments, while others were proposed, many timed to coincide with Passover. More importantly, intersectional student groups banded together to call for the boycott of ‘Zionists’ and Jewish groups on campus. The marginalization of Jews from the progressive environment of the American university is expanding. For now, university administrations are a bulwark, but with the larger trend on campus being to yield to mobs, the possibility increases that Israel, and Jewish students, will be sacrificed.

Analysis

April was an especially active month for BDS. As the spring semester draws to a close the BDS movement on campus has scored a number of successes in student governments.

At George Washington University a BDS resolution was suddenly scheduled for a vote but then cancelled, after which the local Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter occupied the student government offices. Subsequently, the appearance of flyers and stickers on campus accusing the SJP of being antisemitic occasioned cries of being ‘unsafe’ and demands for protection. The vote was rescheduled and after a contentious three-hour debate, which featured the senate agreeing to SJP demands for a secret ballot, the resolution was approved.

Palestinian and Muslim students responded to the vote by saying that while their concerns were finally being recognized, they still did not feel ‘protected.’ The vote came on the heels of the student government election in which a candidate was discovered to have expressed antisemitic sentiments on social media, causing him to withdraw, but who was not censured. The university president also issued a statement saying that divestment from Israel would not be considered.

Another BDS referendum was approved at Barnard College, calling on the student government to demand the university divest from corporations doing business with Israel. Opponents claimed that the bill was introduced on short notice, giving them little time to organize. The student government issued a statement claiming both the process and the outcome were fair representations of students’ viewpoints. The lead up to the vote was marked by ‘apartheid week’ protests on the Columbia/Barnard campuses, which featured disruption of Yom HaShoah commemorations, and the dismissal of complaints from Jewish students regarding ongoing harassment by BDS activists.

Some college age Jewish observers contended that ‘Israeli propaganda backfired,’ that when confronted by the complex realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Barnard students voted their consciences. Other Jewish students believe the aggressive tactics of the shadowy ‘Canary Mission’ website, which names BDS activists and quotes their hateful social media postings, were unnecessarily polarizing, a viewpoint that was bizarrely endorsed by the ADL.

DS resolutions were also suddenly proposed at Case Western Reserve but then tabled, as well as at the City University of New York.

These viewpoints suggest more emotional shallowness and political ignorance than anything else.

In response to the Barnard referendum a group of 2000 alumna signed a petition of protest, and the president of the university stated the institution would take no action on the referendum, which did not represent a consensus of students and “would risk chilling campus discourse on a set of issues that members of our community should be able to discuss and debate freely.” The referendum was also widely condemned by the media. But the student government condemned the university’s stance, setting the stage for future confrontations.

The president of the University of Minnesota expressed disapproval of the BDS resolution that was approved in March. After that vote, the local SJP chapter sponsored a talk in which Israel was accused of ethnically cleansing Palestine in 1948, annihilating tens of thousands of Palestinians, and ‘Judaizing’ Palestine “as Nazis Germanized the conquered lands.”

BDS resolutions were also suddenly proposed at Case Western Reserve but then tabled and at the City University of New York. A resolution was also approved at the University of Michigan Flint campus. This follows the approval last year of resolutions at the Ann Arbor and Dearborn campuses. Finally, the student government at the University of Arkansas Fayetteville passed an unusual anti-BDS resolution.

The BDS resolutions and referenda have limited importance, since, as noted, in all cases university administrators have made it clear that the institutions have no intention of divesting from Israel. Student government actions, however, set the stage for growing confrontations with university administrations on BDS and other issues, and further poison campus environments. The reality that BDS activity and antisemitic agitation is typically orchestrated by the same small cadres of activists who dominate multiple organizations make the situation all the more problematic.

More significant were a number of incidents where ‘intersectional’ coalitions of organizations have agreed to boycott ‘Zionists’ and other supporters of Israel. At New York University 51 groups expressed support for the graduate student union’s adoption of a BDS resolution. The resolution demands the university to boycott Israel until it ends the “occupation,” and demands the university end its program in Tel Aviv.

In a statement the supporting groups stated they would commit to:

“Boycotting Israeli goods and goods manufactured in the Occupied Territories, except for those manufactured by Palestinians…

Boycotting Israeli academic institutions and conferences sponsored by the State of Israel

Boycotting NYU’s pro-Israel clubs, Realize Israel and TorchPAC, by not co-sponsoring events with them, as well as boycotting off-campus pro-Israel groups such as Birthright-Taglit, StandWithUs, Christians United for Israel, the Maccabee Task Force, Mosaic United, Zionist Organization of America, American Israeli Political Action Committee, and the Anti-Defamation League

Endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement

Calling on NYU to divest its holdings from companies and funds that are complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine

Committing to continually recognizing indigenous land and sovereignty.”

The groups thereby committed themselves to boycott Israeli products, pro-Israel groups, divestment from Israel, and the goals of the BDS movement, which include the ‘right of return’ and thus the end of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state.

In the wake of the intersectional coalition’s announcement a university spokesman rejected the boycott saying “The University opposes any kind of boycott or official refusal by some student groups to interact with other student groups because of differing points of view. It is at odds with our traditions and values, especially our core belief in the free exchange of ideas. The university president also condemned BDS at a town hall meeting, a move that caused upset from BDS supporters.

Similar efforts to boycott Israel and ostracize its supporters emerged elsewhere. At the University of Virginia the ‘Minority Rights Council’ rejected the school’s Jewish Leadership Council from membership on the latter included Hoos for Israel. The school’s newspaper forcefully condemned the move. At the University of Maryland the LGTBQ group ‘Pride Alliance’ protested Israel Independence Day celebrations and issued a statement condemning Israel and Zionism as “an oppressive political ideology.”

Condemnation of Israel was also appended to completely unrelated issues. At California Polytechnic State University a racially insensitive incident in a fraternity resulted in a coalition of students issued a series of demands. These included support for various ethnic and black studies programs and funding increases for ALL cultural clubs, with the exception of organizations that are aligned with Zionist ideology.”

Palestinian ‘antinormalization’ – the refusal to engage in dialogue with opponents, or to permit them to speak – continues to be a feature on campus, most recently demonstrated by the disruption of Israeli speakers at Syracuse University and the University of Michigan. But these tactics have also spread from the BDS movement to the campus left as a whole. This position moves pro-Israel groups into a position similar to Republican and Conservative campus groups and speakers, which, in addition to harassment (with the apparent consent of the administration), are increasingly subject to calls for defundingdeplatforming, and expulsion. These expand the national trend toward vicious and exclusionary politics, where compromise is depicted as betrayal or even heresy.

These incidents are also manifestations of the growing trend against any interaction with ‘Zionists’ and even with Jewish organizations like Hillel. Many statements surrounded protests against Israel Independence Day celebrations, such as at Stony Brook University, where a student was quoted saying “I think we’re past that point of conversation where it’s been 70 years under the occupation of Israel… We want Zionism off this campus, so we want Hillel off this campus… What we want is a proper Jewish organization that allows Jews to express their faith, have sabbath – everything like that, that are not Zionists, that doesn’t support Israel.” Mainstream organizations like Hillel are thus in the position again of having to repudiate Israel for the sake of being accepted, perhaps quite literally, on campus.

Overall, ostracizing Israeli and Jewish organizations on campus is increasing and with it the possibility of defunding by student governments. Both of these tactics were seen as far back as the 1970s at British universities, when Jewish student groups were essentially kicked out after the United Nations ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution.

The success of BDS votes also points to the declining position of Jewish concerns on American campuses, at least with respect to the treatment of Jews and Israel by other students. The response of university administrations remains firm against BDS as such but is weakening on campus antisemitism and the decaying environment for free speech.

One example of a university administration refusing to take campus antisemitism serious was seen at Oberlin College, where the president testily rejected protests from Jewish alums regarding attacks on Israel and open antisemitism on campus. The likelihood is growing that a university will, if only to put itself on the side of a mob of angry customers, agree to divest from companies doing business in Israel.

Arguably, the logic of ‘intersectional boycotts’ of ‘Zionists’ has also empowered full fledged racists attacks on Jews, such as that from a black nationalist faculty member at Knox College, from a Palestinian faculty member at San Francisco State University, who characterized the university’s apologies for ill-treatment of Jews as a “declaration of war” against Arabs and Muslims, and by a professor at the University of Toronto who responded to an student’s inquiry by accusing him of being an ‘agent of the Israeli government.’

Politicians have also spoken firmly against BDS but have taken little action, as shown by the continued delays regarding the nomination of Kenneth Marcus to head the Education Department’s office of civil rights. Legislative initiatives, such as that passed by the South Carolina legislature adopting a definition of antisemitism that includes demonization of Israel and aimed at protecting the rights of college students, will certainly face legal challenges.

Takeovers of events and sit-ins, traditional but mostly dormant campus tactics until their revival by the BDS movement, are now increasing common, for example at Howard UniversityDuke University, and Columbia University.

Intersectional divestment efforts will also grow. The BDS movement pioneered divestment as a public relations strategy only to see fossil fuel divestment take the limelight on campus. But as this latter effort grows, along with the more recent calls for universities and states to divest from gun manufacturers, and from financial institutions that undertake other unpopular initiatives, the BDS movement will attempt to unify and co-opt higher visibility and trendier causes. This intersectional process will make Israel divestment more politically viable for institutions.

In the political sphere, there were a number of important developments that demonstrated the intersectional usurpation of other movements by BDS, and their antisemitic orientation. After an incident in which two African American men were arrested in a Starbucks after the manager complained to police, the company announced that it would expand its anti-bias training, and would include briefings from the ADL.

In response, Tamika Mallory, a co-organizer of the Women’s March and a self-proclaimed admirer of noted antisemite, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, expressed severe disapproval of the ADL, saying the group was “constantly attacking black and brown people.” She went on to call for a boycott of Starbucks and that it “should have never been enlisted in the first place. There are other great Jewish orgs who fight racism of All kinds every day: Jews for Racial Economic Justice (JFREG) [sic], Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Jewish Voice for Peace.”

Mallory’s praise for leading ‘Jewish’ BDS organizations and her statement that black people were being “fooled” brought together the BDS movement and Farrakhan style antisemitic conspiratorial thinking. Though widely condemned by feminist leaders, Mallory’s case suggests antisemitism will become a defining feature and litmus test for far-left feminism.

The role of ‘Jewish Voice for Peace’ (JVP) in promulgating anti-Israel accusations and antisemitic conspiracies was also highlighted in Durham, North Carolina became the first municipality to ban police international police exchanges in order to avoid “military style training.” The measure also bans “any exchange with Israel.”

JVP’s “Deadly Exchange” campaign accuses Israel of being the source of police violence in the US. The campaign specifically accuses American Jewish organizations including AIPAC and the ADL as being responsible for police contacts and hence police violence. JVP and a coalition of other groups targeted Durham despite the city’s police having had almost no contact with Israel.

Despite opposition from local police and Jewish leaders, the measure, which was supported by the city council and mayor, advanced. The public debate was characterized by accusations that Israel routinely commits massacres and war crimes, and culminated in a Nation of Islam representative describing a “synagogue of Satan” and accusing Jews of “an inordinate amount of control” over city politics. While the mayor admitted that JVP had invented accusations against the Durham police department, the measure still passed.

The putative Jewishness of JVP, and the participation of Jewish community members who were part of local Jewish organizations in the campaign, were key to its success. The larger JVP goals of vilifying Israel in singularly hideous terms and engineering splits in the Jewish community put Jewish organizations in impossible situations. Like Hillels on campus, local Jewish organizations are being confronted with the choice of supporting Israel or including Jews who vilify Israel. Both unity and disunity play into the hands of marginal hate groups like JVP. Anti-police and anti-Israel stances also will also become standard features of local and black politics.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the City Council was prepared to debate a BDS resolution that called on the municipality to cease doing business with companies, including Hewlett Packard, that have relationships with Israel. Initial reports indicated that members of the City Council were working with JVP members, but pressure by Jewish groups led the mayor to table the motion.

On a more positive note, the Wisconsin legislature passed an anti-BDS bill but there are indications that state legislators are increasingly concerned about the viability of such legislation, thanks to lawsuits and lobbying from the BDS movement and its allies, including elements of the far left, such as the ACLU, and American Muslim Brotherhood organizations.

Internationally, the deep antisemitism of Labour Party members was revealed during and after a Parliamentary debate in which Labour MP’s detailed the shocking extent of abuse they have received, which wove together both classically antisemitic and anti-Israel themes. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appeared to dismiss the complaints and left the debate early.

In the wake of the debate, a Labour official was quoted that a future Labour government led by Corbyn would boycott Israeli “settlements” and, “after education,” join the BDS movement as a whole. The appointment of a new advisor to Corbyn’s inner circle from a well-known BDS group intensified those fears. An example of the extent to which antisemites in power will go to exclude Israelis was shown in recent calls by the Dublin city councilors for the Irish government to expel the Israeli ambassador after recent border disturbances in Gaza.

In the cultural sphere, Israel-born actress Natalie Portman publicly declined to travel to Israel to accept the ‘Genesis Prize,’ leading some to suggest that she was acting in support of the BDS movement. She then clarified her stance saying that she was refusing to share the stage with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Later reports, however, indicated that Portman had indeed emphasized the situation in Gaza in her emails with prize organizers.

Despite explicit disavowal of the BDS movement in her statement, leaders of the movement described her stance as implicit support. Media observers were also eager to characterize her statement as a “tipping point.” The lesson of the affair is that the BDS movement will describe any act of celebrity avoidance of Israel, whether simple rescheduling of a performance or more complex political disagreement, as an expression of support. Celebrities, accustomed to being fawned over and treated as politically wise, are rarely sophisticated enough to understand this.

Finally, the BDS movement threatened to sue Netflix if the series Fauda, which deals with an Israeli counterrorism unit, were not removed. The movement claimed the series, which deals sympathetically with both Palestinians and Israelis, was “racist propaganda for the Israeli occupying army… encourages violating international law and human rights… and gives legitimization to war criminals.” The network refused to remove the series and a group of entertainment executives issued a public statement decrying the censorship effort. With Israeli television programs becoming a hot commodity for American and global networks, efforts to have them canceled will increase.

Associated Student Government

University of Arkansas

ASG Senate Resolution No. 19

Author(s): Senator Noah Bradshaw, Senator Drake Moudy, Senator Jesse Kloss

Sponsor(s): Senator Karsen Sims, Senator Warrington Sebree, Senator Allison Barnett, Senator Brandon Davis, Senator Mateo Lopez, Senator Strohmann Breeding, Senator Amarchi Onyebueke, Senator Thea Winston, Senator Elonay, Senator Bhimani, Senator Jaocb Boone, Senator Jared Pinkerton, Senator Garett Dorf, Senator Strohman Breeding, Senator Collin Petigna, Senator Miriam Siddiqui, Senator Christine Carroll, Senator Andrew O’Neil, Senator Clay Smith

 

 A Resolution to Reaffirm Support for Jewish and Israeli Students at the University of Arkansas

 

Whereas,                   The University of Arkansas is home to a small but vibrant Jewish minority; and

Whereas,                   Jewish and Israeli students bring valuable experiences and insight to the academic setting of the University of Arkansas; and

Whereas,                   The Chancellor of the University of Arkansas has made it abundantly clear that diversity and inclusion are among his eight priorities for the University; and

Whereas,                   In ASG Senate Resolution No. 04, the ASG Senate expressed its commitment to diversity and inclusion on campus; and

Whereas,                   Jewish people are facing the highest rate of recorded anti-semitism in the United States in the last decade[1]; and

Whereas,                   The Anti-Defamation League has identified 204 anti-semitic incidents on college campuses in the U.S. in its 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Events, an 89% increase since 2016[2]; and

Whereas,                   Due to the increase in anti-semitic activity in the U.S. in the last year, particularly on college campuses, including but not limited to the BDS movement, Neo-Nazism, and white supremacist movements. , the Associated Student Government Senate deems it necessary to issue a resolution of support for Jewish and Israeli students on this campus; then

Be it resolved,           The Associated Student Government Senate is not seeking to make a statement on any international issue, but rather condemns any movement or activity that alienates Jewish and Israeli students from social and academic circles on the University of Arkansas campus; then

Be it therefore resolved:    That the Associated Student Government Senate supports the inclusion of Jewish and Israeli students and their beliefs and values on campus; and

Be it further resolved:        As consistent with ASG Senate Resolution 04, the Associated Student Government Senate supports the acknowledgement of a diverse student body.

 

 

 

Official Use Only

 

Amendments:                                                                                                                     

 

Vote Count:              Aye     40                  Nay     2                     Abstentions             

 

Legislation Status: Passed     yes             Failed                          _         Other                        

 

___________________________                             ________________

Colman Betler, ASG Chair of the Senate                                           Date

 

___________________________                             ________________

Andrew Counce, ASG President                                                          Date

[1] https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/2017-audit-of-anti-semitic-incidents#major-findings

[2]https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/27/589119452/anti-semitic-incidents-see-largest-single-year-increase-on-record-audit-finds

April saw important victories for those working to combat increasing levels of anti-Semitism. In what is being hailed as a “historic action,” South Carolina’s state senate has adopted a definition of anti-Semitism for use by South Carolina public universities.

Read Brief

Algemeiner

Two members of anti-Zionist groups at New York University were arrested while protesting a celebration of Israel’s Independence Day on Friday.

Photo: Screenshot / @ido_nyc photography.

The unnamed students — who are affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), respectively — were taking part in a demonstration at Washington Square Park, where hundreds had congregated for a “Rave in the Park” celebration held by Realize Israel, a pro-Israel club at NYU.

While some protesters waved the Palestinian flag as their peers danced to Israeli music in blue-and-white garb, others wiped their feet and stomped on an Israeli flag, according to video footage. Police officers interrupted the protest at around 1 PM, arresting a member of JVP who set an Israel flag on fire, the student-run NYU Local reported.

Later in the afternoon, a male student was filmed grabbing the arm of a Realize Israel member who was singing “Hatikvah” along with dozens of students and forcibly taking her microphone before shouting, “Free Palestine, end the occupation.” Several members of the surrounding group quickly circled the protester before he was removed from the premises by police officers. The same student had allegedly stolen an Israeli flag from participants of the rave.

As Germans continue to probe the connection between antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of recent antisemitic incidents…

The students were held overnight at the New York County Criminal Court and released on Saturday. Dozens of peers attended their arraignment in a show of support organized by the Governance Council of Minority and Marginalized Students at NYU and 16 other groups, including NYU College Democrats.

The student accused of burning the Israeli flag is facing charges of second-degree reckless endangerment and resisting arrest, and will return to court on June 1, Washington Square News reported. The student filmed grabbing a microphone is accused of disorderly conduct, second degree robbery, third degree assault, and third degree criminal mischief. He was assigned a court date of June 18.

Protesters also appeared to try to shut down the rave, with a flyeruploaded online by SJP encouraging passersby “angered at this celebratory event” to file a noise complaint against its organizers. The note included the partial logo of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, but did not otherwise mention either the subject of the event or the protest.

In a statement published on Friday, SJP claimed the two “comrades were arrested for ideological reasons,” and that their “transgressions … warrant only fines.”

“We’re not going to let them stand by and support Zionism,” SJP President Khalid Abu Dawas told Washington Square News. “Our point is to make being Zionist uncomfortable on the NYU campus. They shouldn’t be comfortable because the ideology of Zionism is antithetical to Palestinian liberation and Palestinian sovereignty at its core.”

On Sunday, Realize Israel responded to the arrests by calling on SJP, JVP, and its own members to “come together and engage in constructive dialogue in the future.”

“We acknowledge that these protesters have strong opinions and we respect and encourage free speech and peaceful protest,” the group wrote. “However, we condemn in the strongest terms the violent actions perpetrated by the two individuals, which have no place at our university.”

Realize Israel and TorchPAC, another pro-Israel group at NYU, were recently targeted for boycott by a coalition of 53 campus clubs including SJP and JVP. The coalition also pledged to avoid off-campus Zionist organizations and all Israeli goods.

The boycott was denounced in a letter sent to the school’s president last week by representatives for StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, who claimed it violates NYU policy and encourages conduct that may be in breach of state and federal law.

“Moreover, it indicates a reprehensible joint effort to marginalize and stigmatize the Jewish student community,” the advocates warned.

By Shiri Moshe

Algemeiner

Two groups that work to support Jewish students on campus called on New York University on Tuesday to take action against 53 student clubs that pledged to boycott their Zionist peers.

In a letter sent to President Andrew Hamilton, representatives for StandWithUs and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law denounced a recent pledge signed by cultural and political groups at NYU, which committed to boycotting “NYU’s pro-Israel clubs, Realize Israel and TorchPAC, by not co-sponsoring events with them.”

The student coalition also expressed support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and agreed to blacklist Israeli goods and off-campus Zionist organizations, from StandWithUs to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group.

“There are violations of NYU policy here, and conduct foreseeably undertaken in support of this statement could potentially violate state and federal law,” StandWithUs and the Brandeis Center warned. “Moreover, it indicates a reprehensible joint effort to marginalize and stigmatize the Jewish student community at your university.”

A number of Jewish and pro-Israel groups expressed well-wishes to Mike Pompeo on Thursday after his appointment to serve as…

While commending Hamilton’s denunciation of BDS and support of academic freedom at a recent town hall — comments that were reportedly met with hisses by some student activists — the groups urged the president “to role model that call to action.”

“Reject this discriminatory statement firmly, specifically, and unequivocally to the entire campus community,” including by emphasizing that efforts to stigmatize NYU students based on their identity are unacceptable, they recommended.

An investigation should also be carried out, and disciplinary action undertaken if violations of NYU policies are found, while “training and education” on bias and intolerance should be granted to the campus community on an annual basis, the groups wrote.

Tensions between groups supportive of the BDS campaign and those who oppose it have intensified at NYU following the publication of the boycott pledge earlier this month.

More than 1,750 people signed a petition launched last week by Realize Israel and TorchPAC, while some of the pledge’s signatories claimed to “have been victims of tireless harassment” since taking their public stance.

NYU Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine — two groups that spearheaded the BDS coalition — also launched an “Israel Apartheid Week” campaign on April 15 to spread awareness of BDS, which seeks to isolate Israel until it accepts a number of Palestinian demands. These include the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and their five million descendants into Israel.

Realize Israel and TorchPAC, in turn, hosted “Israel Peace Week” — complete with a critical lecture on BDS, a service for Israel’s memorial day, and a communal Shabbat dinner.

On Friday, Realize Israel will celebrate the country’s 70th Independence Day with its annual “Rave in the Park,” which hundreds have expressed interest in attending. A coalition of 9 NYU student groups — as well as clubs from Columbia University and the City University of New York system — plan to protest the event, calling it a “disturbing public celebration” marking “70 years of Israel’s existence as a settler colonial state.”

By Nina Siegal
US News and World Report

Late in March, Mireille Knoll, an 85-year-old Jewish grandmother and Holocaust survivor, was found dead – stabbed to death with her body partially burned – in her Paris apartment. Two men in their 20s were placed under formal investigation on charges of murder motivated by anti-Semitism. French interior minister Gérard Collomb told Parliament that one of the alleged killers told the other, “She’s a Jew. She must have money.”

French authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the case, but Jewish advocacy groups across the world have situated the murder in the broader context of rising anti-Semitism in France, and across Europe.

For Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, the slaying is “a sad symbol of what we are returning to.” In January, in a speech at the European Parliament, Kantor warned that Europe is no longer safe against anti-Semitism because the last generation of Holocaust survivors and witnesses is dwindling. Knoll’s death, he said, is another sign.

“There have been far too many of these murders and attempted murders of Jews in France to call them sporadic,” Kantor wrote in an email. “This murder should not just appall us, it should serve as a final wake-up call that more must be done not just to protect Jewish communities and institutions, but also all individuals at risk.”

Lethal violence against Jewish people is certainly not an everyday occurrence, but the brutal murder of a woman who had already experienced the horrors of mass genocide has been particularly painful to the international Jewish community. It follows other shocking anti-Semitic incidents in France, such as the 2012 killing of three Jewish children and a teacher at a Jewish school in Toulouse by an Islamic fundamentalist, and the 2015 murder of four people at a Jewish supermarket, linked to the Charlie Hebdo killings.

More recently, a Syrian man turned himself in to German police last week after admitting to using a belt to beat an Israeli man wearing a yarmulke in Berlin. The incident sparked protests this week and – in a nation sensitive to its relations with its Jewish community – has drawn the condemnation of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Knoll’s death resonates deeply across France because the country is home to the largest population of Jews in Europe and to the fourth largest such population in the world by country, according to 2015 data from the independent Pew Research Center. It also is part of a broader trend of growing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia that a European Union report noted more than two years ago.

There is rising concern about the safety of Jewish people and communities in Europe, as the number of violent attacks aimed at Jews in many countries has risen in recent years. Jewish leaders are speculating on the reasons why this may be occurring now. Some, such as Kantor, argue that 73 years after the end of World War II, Europe is no longer inoculated against anti-Semitism. Others blame the rise of populist, nationalist political parties, while still others point to radicalized Muslims, who, according to recent data from the University of Oslo, are most often the perpetrators.

Knoll’s murder follows another attack in April 2017, when Sarah Halimi, a 65-year old Orthodox Jewish physician and kindergarten teacher in Paris, was beaten in her apartment and then thrown out a window. Both women had lived alone and had previously complained of anti-Semitic threats, according to Noémie Halioua, a French journalist with the Jewish weekly newspaper Actualité Juive and the author of a new book on the Halimi case.

While racially motivated hate crimes have decreased in France overall, there has been an uptick in anti-Semitic violence in the past year, from 77 incidents in 2016 to 97 in 2017, according to a report released by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University in early April. The authors of the study cautioned that the information could not be verified by their criteria.

The report also found that physical violence against Jewish people around the world dropped by 9 percent from 2016 to 2017, but anti-Semitic sentiment, hate-speech, threats and cyberattacks have become mainstream throughout Europe, they asserted, leading to a “corrosion of Jewish life.”

Kantor says anti-Semitic violence has become “an almost daily occurrence in parts of Europe and apparently, Jews no longer feel that they can rely on the preventive actions of the law enforcement authorities to protect them even in their own homes.”

The report concludes that the rise of anti-Semitism can be attributed to “the constant rise of the extreme right, a heated anti-Zionist discourse in the left, accompanied by harsh anti-Semitic expressions, and radical Islamism.”

The Anti-Defamation League, an American Jewish nongovernmental organization, counts Knoll’s death as the 11th anti-Semitic murder in France in the past 12 years. The group estimates that assaults on Jews that take place twice a week on average in France, creating a sense of insecurity for the entire Jewish community.

Sharon Nazarian, its senior vice president of International Affairs, has spent the past several months traveling to European capitals such as Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels, Budapest and Rome, speaking with Jewish community leaders and government officials.

“What I’m hearing from them is a real nervousness, a feeling insecurity, a lack of safety, both physically and also for their Jewish way of life,” said Nazarian in a telephone interview. “It’s really unprecedented going back to World War II. A lot of warning bells are going off and red flags are going up and we’re very, very concerned.”

She says “a loss of a sense of shame that did exist for decades after the war” about anti-Semitic attitudes has contributed to the shift, along with the rise of nativist right-wing politicians, anti-Zionist left wing activists, and scapegoating of Jews for other global problems.

Violent incidents, the Kantor Center report finds, have decreased because of better security and intelligence in protecting Jewish communities. But the report stresses that “it is overshadowed by the many verbal and visual expressions, some on the verge of violence, such as direct threats, harassments, insults, calls to attack Jews and even kill them en masse.”

Alvin Rosenfeld, director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University and an author of many books on the Holocaust and the perspectives of it, argues that anti-Semitism has never truly left Europe.

“The view that knowledge of the Holocaust would somehow be prophylactic, and it would guard against the return of anti-Semitism, seems now to be naive, and I admit that I myself subscribed to that view,” he says. “It just isn’t the case that Holocaust memory guards against the repeat of Jew hatred.”

He agrees that the rise of anti-Semitic sentiment stems from a multiplicity of forces. “We’re living at a time in which neo-nationalism, neo-nativism, populism, autocracy and theocratic extremisms are all coming to the fore, in some cases with a great rush,” he said. “Anti-Semitism, together with hatred against other types of people, flourishes in such a climate.”

Emile Schrijver, general director of the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam, says anti-Semitism is not as bad in the Netherlands as it is in other countries, such as France. Yet, he adds, “there are very real threats and we have occasional incidents that are clearly of an anti-Semitic nature here,” he said. ‘This is different than the past. It happens more often. But in Holland, at least, I don’t see a reason to panic.”

He added, “anti-Semitism is definitely back in our streets, and there’s no denying it,”

He adds: “And we should never make it more harmless than it is. The answer for me is don’t go overboard, don’t overreact. The way to turn it around it to talk about it openly and give it the right name.”

Download PDF

Washington, D.C., April 25, 2018: StandWithUs and The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) are deeply concerned by a discriminatory joint statement signed by 51 student organizations targeting two pro-Israel organizations at New York University (NYU).

On Tuesday, April 24, 2018, StandWithUs and LDB sent a legal letter to NYU President Andrew Hamilton, calling on him to thoroughly investigate this discriminatory conduct and if violations are found, discipline the responsible student organizations, consistent with applicable constitutional protections. The letter explained that the student groups have indicated an intent to take actions that may violate university policies as well as state and federal civil rights law.

On April 9, 2018, 51 NYU student organizations co-signed a joint statement pledging to boycott Israeli goods, Israeli academic institutions and conferences, and numerous pro-Israel outside organizations. Additionally, the statement promotes the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and commits to boycotting TorchPAC and Realize Israel, NYU’s pro-Israel student organizations. As the StandWithUs and LDB letter states, the statement “effectively discriminates against Israeli students at NYU on the basis of their national origin. It also “effectively discriminates against many Jewish students, as Zionism is the movement for Jewish self-determination.” In this way, the discriminatory statement “seeks to denigrate this vital aspect of mainstream Jewish identity.”

“This joint statement amounts to a malicious, anti-Semitic campaign intended to suppress and marginalize pro-Israel and Jewish students on campus,” said Yael Lerman, Director of the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department. “We call on the NYU administration to investigate acts of bigotry and to show a zero tolerance policy for any violations of state law or university policy.”

Aviva Vogelstein, Director of Legal Initiatives at LDB, called for President Hamilton to move beyond mere dialogue to unify his campus. “While we agree that ongoing discussion is vital, Jewish and Israeli students must not feel that their basic rights on campus are in jeopardy.”

The full text of the letter can be found here

About StandWithUs:

StandWithUs (SWU) is a sixteen-year-old, international, non-profit Israel education organization. Through university fellowships, high school internships, middle school curricula, conferences, materials, social media, educational films, and missions to Israel, StandWithUs supports people around the world who want to educate their campuses and communities about Israel. Based in Los Angeles, the organization has chapters throughout the U.S., in Israel, the UK and Canada.
About The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law:

The Louis D. Brandeis Center, Inc., or LDB, is an independent, nonprofit organization established to advance the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promote justice for all. The Brandeis Center conducts research, education and advocacy to combat the resurgence of anti-Semitism on college and university campuses. It is not affiliated with the Massachusetts university, the Kentucky law school, nor any of the other institutions that share the name and honor the memory of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Nature

A dark shadow is stalking the land. Anti-Semitism is once again showing itself and must be confronted head-on and stamped out wherever it is found. Discrimination against any individuals and groups goes against the values of science, human decency and this journal. Sunlight remains the best disinfectant, and one of the places where the infection of anti-Semitism still thrives is on some university campuses. If researchers who work there are not aware of this and angry about it, then they have not been paying sufficient attention.

There are many examples and many responses. Just last week, South Carolina took another step towards a law that would make it the first US state to set a legal definition of anti-Semitism. Supporters of the move argue that it is needed to help university administrators to combat a rising tide of hate against Jewish staff and students. Critics say it impinges on free speech. That this is being discussed at all in 2018 speaks volumes.

One does not have to delve too deeply into modern international politics to find clear examples of a renewed and ugly mood of hostility towards Jews. The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, secured a fourth term in office earlier this month on an aggressively nationalist ticket widely criticized for anti-Semitic images and messages. And last week saw the grim spectacle of British MPs standing in Parliament and reading out some of the intolerable anti-Semitic abuse they have received as part of a highly unusual debate on the subject.

It would be surprising if this political climate did not embolden anti-Semites on campus. Reliable numbers are hard to come by. In a report last year, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights pointed to gaps in data about anti-Semitic incidents across the continent, which it intends to address with a survey later this year. But some estimates do indicate that there has been a surge in places, including schools and universities.

In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League reported in February, such incidents on university campuses increased by 89% in 2017, to 204. Surveys in the United States and the United Kingdom highlight that many Jewish students find the atmosphere on campus intimidating. This is hardly surprising, given that one of the most common offences is to draw a swastika on a wall.

Anti-Semitism — prejudice and violence against individuals and communities — is distinct from legitimate criticism of Israeli policy. It is perfectly possible to argue the rights and wrongs of international politics without hate speech.

The following is a widely accepted definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. 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.”

According to this definition, examples of anti-Semitic behaviour include (but are not limited to) furthering the myth that Jews are engaged in a shadowy conspiracy to control events, and holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the government of Israel. It should not need saying that this is as preposterous as holding Muslims collectively responsible for the actions of the Syrian government.

Nature has a long history of highlighting and confronting anti-Semitism. In an editorial in December 1935, this journal warned that an “anti-Semitic clique” was trying to seize control of the Germany-based Astronomical Society (Nature 136, 927–928; 1935). Less than a month later, we noted that discrimination against Jews and other “non-Aryans” meant that “Germany stands condemned as guilty of a persecution no less barbarous and an intolerance as rigid and as crass as any that figure in the annals of the Middle Ages” (Nature 137, 16; 1936).

It is sad and worrying that we feel the need to highlight the point again. But we are confident we can rely on Nature’s readers to challenge anti-Semitism whenever and wherever it occurs — in their universities, on campus, at social occasions, or on the street — just as we can rely on readers, as we have frequently urged them, to challenge those who express their hatred of people of colour, women, Muslims, immigrants, the gay and transgender community and many others.

Jackson Richman
Washington Examiner

For months, Kenneth Marcus’ nomination to lead the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has been stalled amid staunch Democratic opposition.

The head of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Marcus is a staunch advocate of free speech and civil rights for all, which includes Jewish students, who face vitriolic hatred on college campuses nationwide. The organization fights anti-Semitism in higher education.

At least 60 Jewish, Christian, education, and civil rights organizations are pushing for Marcus’s confirmation, including many pro-Israel groups like StandWithUs.

“Kenneth Marcus is an outstanding defender of civil rights,” StandWithUs co-founder and CEO Roz Rothstein told Red Alert Politics. “He is being subjected to a smear campaign by anti-Israel groups due to his outspoken advocacy against anti-Semitism, including cases of bigotry that involve Israel. Anti-Israel extremists are worried that if Jewish students get all the protections they deserve, it will be more difficult to spread hate against Jews and Israelis.”

Jennifer Braceras, who served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights with Marcus, wrote in The Hill in January, “After all, past nominees for the post have come from the ranks of civil rights organizations or affinity groups focused primarily on issues related to their own race, gender or ethnic identity.”

Braceras added, “But, unlike activists who focus almost exclusively on issues that impact their own communities, Marcus has spent a distinguished career fighting for the rights of all Americans, including women, racial and ethnic minorities, Sikh, Arab, and Muslim Americans, and Americans with special needs.”

 Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the AMCHA Initiative, echoed Braceras’s sentiment in a letter to the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“At a time of rising intolerance and increased polarization in our nation, and particularly on our campuses, we cannot think of a person better equipped to safeguard the civil rights of all students,” wrote Rossman-Benjamin.

Marcus’s extensive experience makes him highly qualified; therefore, it is time for the Senate to invoke cloture and vote to confirm this important higher education figure to the Department of Education.

“Ken has worked diligently for many years on a number of initiatives to address discrimination on campus,” human rights lawyer Brooke Goldstein told Red Alert Politics. “I have consistently been struck by his ardent and compassionate dedication to protecting and upholding the civil rights of students, his clear thinking, and his deep respect for and understanding of the rule of law.”

Marcus held the same position under former President George W. Bush and therefore is no stranger to the department, let alone the Office of Civil Rights. He was also a staff director of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Excluding extraordinary circumstances, although all nominees should be properly vetted by the Senate, undersecretary nominees like Marcus should not face staunch resistance from the minority party. Elections have consequences, one of which includes the president being able to have the political appointees he chooses to enact his agenda.

“I think that members of Congress from across the political spectrum will not take seriously the attempts of a few entities to advance their own agenda and undermine Ken by referencing (and, indeed, utterly distorting) his work to protect the civil rights of Jewish students,” Goldstein said in an email.

If opposition voters, including those inside the Senate, want to get rid of the possibility of appointees like Marcus, they have that opportunity at the ballot box.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell: Start the full Senate vote clock and confirm Marcus.

University of Chicago School of Law

Supreme Court litigator Alyza Lewin will address LDB students at UChicago School of Law on her work litigating the “Jerusalem Passport Case” in front of the Supreme Court. Lewin is the newly appointed Chief Operating Officer and Director of Policy at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. She is also a partner in Lewin & Lewin LLP, where she specializes in litigation and government relations. She is the former President of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) and has served on the boards of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia.