Journalism by Jewish college students, for Jewish college students.
Witnessing the first day of the Presbyterian General Assembly has been both empowering and dismaying. I am glad to have been part of an effective coalition of Jews, Presbyterians, and Palestinians, and Muslims coming together to support the Presbyterian Church’s effort to divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola. But I’m dismayed by the opposition’s claim…
The recent debacle about the (Jewish, day-school alum) Princeton freshman who claims he “checked his privilege” dominated my social media network for a good two weeks. A few people came out in his support, but most people – myself included – were furious at his complete inability to consider the advantages he may have…
In anticipation of their reactive “Move Over AIPAC” conference this weekend in Washington, DC, JVP has sent out a press release with a few assertive quotations from members of its “Young, Jewish, Proud” youth wing. The statements from YJP, whose members disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s speech at the Federations’ General Assembly in November,…
Students at Harvard say that the world’s military powers need to be more attentive to how they confront non-state actors in the wake of Judge Richard Goldstone’s recent retraction. [Harvard Crimson] This article on JVP should have quoted leaders from other groups involved in Israeli-Palestinian discourse. [Brandeis Justice] Yeshiva University’s neighborhood is the rat capital…
In what should come as no surprise to people who pay attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the last couple of weeks have seen a lot of death in the Holy Land–on both sides. Jewish Voice for Peace, the American Jewish pro-BDS group, released a statement on this violence last week. In its mission statement, JVP…
In New Voices’s first installation of the new Bloggers’ Round Table feature (props to Ben and David for this, I think it’s a great idea), I and several other NV bloggers offered our thoughts on the propriety of Brandeis Hillel’s rejection of the campus JVP chapter. You should read it – check out the comments…
Does Jewish Voice for Peace deserve to be included at Hillel? Lots of people in the Jewish community have been asking this question, and New Voices has been driving the conversation on this issue during the past couple of weeks. In case you’re not on our email list, Facebook page or Twitter feed, here —…
Natan Sharansky says that anti-Israel intimidation is silencing pro-Israel students on campus, but where’s his evidence? [NJJN Just ASC] Hillels should include, not oppose, JVP groups. Look for more on this in an NV blog post later today. [The Magnes Zionist] In related news, the NIF comes out explicitly against BDS. [Atlantic Jeff Goldberg] And BTS (Breaking…
Several Jewish Voice for Peace accounts claim that members of the Israel advocacy group StandWithUs physically assaulted members of JVP with pepper spray at the South Berkeley Senior Center in the Bay Area. [JVP] In a less violent expression of anger, a Cornell professor erupts at a class — because of a yawn. [IvyGate] A…
Protest movements, to gain legitimacy, often relate their cause to another, more established one from the past. Thus we see that gay rights advocates cite the Civil Rights movement of the fifties and sixties, and advocates against the Iraq War find common cause with antiwar protesters from the Vietnam era. Not all protests are the…
This article was reported from the Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans by Caroline Kessler and written by Ben Sales. Five activists from Jewish Voice for Peace disrupted Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans today. The activists stood in five separate locations near the front of the room and shouted slogans saying…
Two Brandeis University student groups, one of them Jewish, will be hosting the school’s first “Israeli Occupation Awareness Week” next week. One of the week’s events will be a speech by Professor Noam Chomsky. Brandeis Students for Justice in Palestine, along with the school’s recently founded chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, organized the series…
Our fear-mongering friends at the Anti-Defamation League gave us two unfortunate treats yesterday. First, they gave an award and a platform to Rupert Murdoch, the man who is trying to transform the world of honest journalism into a world of demagoguery, pandering, sensationalism, fluff and–sometimes–lies. [ADL] Then they came out with a list of the…
In case you’ve missed one of the hot topics of the Jewish media this year, Members of the Tribe have their panties in a bunch over the slowly growing BDS movement in the US and worldwide, which urges universities to divest from, boycott and sanction companies that do business in the West Bank and Gaza….