Months after Wayne Firestone released his controversial guidelines about which groups are and are not welcome in Hillel, the battle rages on. Today, news came out that the pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions group Jewish Voice for Peace was declined membership in Brandeis University’s Hillel, prompting this post from Magnes Zionist blogger Jerry Haber:
Of course, Hillel can exclude any Jewish group it wants. Legally, it can draw up guidelines that exclude J Street U and include Zionist Freedom Alliance and Kahane Lives (both good Zionist organizations, by Hillel’s standards; none of the guidelines says anything about racism. How many times have I heard orthodox Jews sing at Hillel “La’asot nekamah ba-goyim” (To take vengeance on the goyyim). Nothing wrong with that according to the Hillel guidelines).
But how Jewish is it to say to a group of young Jews,”We won’t give you funds to buy sodas and popcorn for a meeting about challenging Israel’s policies on the West Bank. It is not just that we don’t agree with you; we don’t think your position is a legitimate position for Jews at the home for the Jews on campus – although, of course, we will defend to the death your right to that position.”
Again, I don’t really blame Brandeis Hillel’s Student Board, any more than I blame National Hillel. We Jews live in a dark age – where ideological conformity on Israel counts more than observance of commandments, or love of fellow Jews. Perhaps it is best that the JVP students were turned down.Maybe it’s time for a truly inclusive Jewish home on campus that makes ahavat Yisrael/love of Israel the litmus test for Jews and not ahavat medinat Yisrael/the love of the State of Israel – according to Big Brother’s determination of what that is. [All emphasis is the author’s.]
Haber’s post echoes my response to Firestone in December, in which I argued that Hillel is putting the cart before the horse by excluding Jewish students in the name of supporting Israel. Haber goes further, writing that Israel should be excluded from Hillel because it is by nature political. I, for the record, disagree–in short, because I think there’s more to Israel than politics. Check out my above op-ed for details on that.
Anyway, as JVP grows this battle will take place on other campuses as well. Hillel may remain rejectionist, but I’m not sure that that will be the end of the story… After all, in the first decades of last century, many mainstream jewish groups were anti-Zionist, and look what happened to that.
