Israel’s last day envisioned; UC Santa Cruz complaint; Labor strikes in Israel; and more [Required Reading]

By pkessler February 9, 2012

An Israeli filmmaker envisions what Israel’s “last day” would look like, although takes many creative liberties while doing so. However unsettling the video may be, Uriel Heilman notes, it provides a thought provoking, yet unrealistic, depiction of what an attack on Israel and the response would look like. [JTA] Members of the Jewish clergy have…

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Barnard College and the Case on Racism

By Carly Silver February 2, 2012

Barnard College the subject of controversy after an alleged slight to a professor with negative views on Israel | photo by Flickr user walkinggeek (CC BY 2.0) Last fall, a Barnard College professor was accused of discrimination when she allegedly steered  an Orthodox Jewish student away from taking a class taught by controversial professor Joseph…

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Iran responds to UK censure of their TV station by quoting “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”

By yrosenberg May 27, 2011

No, really. Earlier this week, OfCom, the official United Kingdom broadcast regulating authority, censured Iran’s state-run Press TV for conducting and airing an interview with Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahari while he was being held captive and was under coercion from the Iranian government, as doing so was (unsurprisingly) against UK broadcasting rules. The Guardian reports…

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Is American Pop Culture Anti-Semitic?

By lcuen April 24, 2011

I’ve heard about it at two Passovers now, both the one at home in L.A. and the night up in San Francisco with some Israeli friends, the fog playing Elijah as it floated in wisps all around us, a constant yet absent presence. Somehow or another the topic of Mel Gibson arrives. Deep breaths are…

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Will the Pope’s Words Affect Anti-Semitism?

By Carly Silver March 11, 2011

The pope’s latest statement about Jews follows his announcement that, two thousand years after the fact, we were not, in fact, to blame for killing Jesus. While this statement might reverse future anti-Semitism, it might be a bit too little, too late. Unfortunately, hatred towards the Jews for something we didn’t do is likely too…

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Glenn Beck goes extra hateful

By mekeisler February 24, 2011

If you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing you’re not down with Glenn Beck, but did you know that Pinkface Half-wit is a notorious anti-semite? Beck has a long history of appropiating the holocaust for political games, has called George Soros a “puppet master”, and has dressed up as a fetishized Nazi officer for his book…

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Witz: Incomprehensibly pretentious prose written in an invented syntax

By David A.M. Wilensky December 27, 2010

“Witz,” an 817-page tome purporting to be a novel by Joshua Cohen, has been sitting on my shelf for months. I have read fifteen pages of it. I have never been so bored by a “novel” I was so excited for. The premise had me anticipating the arrival of “Witz” with bated breath. At the…

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The Reading List: Anti-Semitic IU Suspect Turns Himself in

By Ben Sales December 20, 2010

The man who vandalized a Jewish building at the University of Indiana turned himself in to police. [JTA] A Jewish student goes to India and takes a cooking class with three Israelis. Why are we not surprised? [Pink Pangea] Increasingly more Muslim students are attending Catholic universities. [WaPo] A British student leader says Jewish persecution is a…

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The Reading List: Why Do Pro-Palestinian Students Oppose Dialogue?

By Ben Sales December 17, 2010

According to Philip Weiss, pro-Palestinian students at Brooklyn College don’t want dialogue with the pro-Israel group. Here’s a telling quote from a student there: “We hold an anti-normalization stance on dialogue,” said Eeman Abuasi, 21, a co-founder of the Palestinian Club who grew up in Brooklyn, east Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah….

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The Reading List: Peter Beinart Lives!

By Ben Sales December 9, 2010

In other words, people are still debating his column from six months ago. First, Roger Cohen says that Jewish organizations in the US need to abandon “Israel right or wrong,” and quotes J Street U employee/rock star Ira Stup–who works in our office–throughout the article. [NYT] Then Gary Rosenblatt casts doubt on Beinart’s evidence and…

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“Rugrats” Insight from the Northwestern Blog

By admin December 2, 2010

Rugrats Tags: Rugrats Episodes,Rugrats,Rugrats Games Over a decade ago, the ADL added “Rugrats” to its tabulation of anti-Semitic propaganda. Despite the fact that it brought us the story of Hanukkah, viewable above, the ADL said the show’s depiction of Jewish characters perpetuated stereotypes. One NW blogger analyzes below: I recently read something surprising about “Rugrats,”…

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Anti-Semitism at Indiana (and Elsewhere)

By Ben Sales December 1, 2010

Note: This article has been edited to reflect a correction. At first the article mentioned vandalism of the Northwestern University Chabad’s property, implying in context that that vandalism was driven by anti-Semitism. Although initial reports of that incident in October claimed it to be anti-Semitic, police later confirmed that the vandalism was not driven by…

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The Reading List: Protest mounts against Columbia/Barnard Hillel

By Ben Sales November 22, 2010

A group of Columbia/Barnard alumni have sent a petition to the schools’ Hillel, advocating open discourse and protesting the Hillel’s decision to pressure the schools’ J Street U affiliate to drop its sponsorship of Gaza UNRWA Director John Ging. [Jewschool] Yes, there is a Guinness World Record for number of dreidels spun simultaneously, and YU students are…

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Morals Over Politics

By bbarer November 11, 2010

After another busy few days at Pardes I have had time to review the news from the week that has past, and I am pleasantly surprised to note the tone that the prime minister of my country, Stephen Harper, took in his speech to the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (see Canada’s national paper,…

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The Reading List: Israelis love Palestinian Beer, fear Palestinians?

By Ben Sales October 7, 2010

It’s possible: Reportedly, Israelis are making their way to the Palestinian Oktoberfest in the Christian town of Taybeh… [Forward Schmooze] And meanwhile, the Israeli government is advancing a bill requiring all Palestinian-Israelis to take a loyalty oath to the state. The shandas for the goyim never stop… [YNet] As long as we’re on the topic…

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