Campus Antisemitism
Equiping a cadre of students with debating tools, historical information, legal support, trips to Israel and more, so that Israel has a place on the university playing fields.
Tufts Friends of Israel group says the class violates a statement by the Office of the President that reads, “While members of our community vigorously debate international politics, Tufts University does not adopt institutional positions with respect to specific geo-political issues.”
“If Catholic students were told they had to disavow the Vatican before they could engage with other members of the student body, everyone would agree that it would be blatant discrimination. This is no different,” said Alyza Lewin, president and general counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
The Massachusetts university’s “academic reputation is on the line here,” says Liel Asulin, campus coordinator with CAMERA on Campus.
These days, campuses are increasingly battlefields where chief among the spoils are the hearts, minds and loyalties of the next generation of the Jewish people.
A four-day conference run by CAMERA in Boston teaches tools of activism, using words, facts, patience and plain-old courage to combat the scourge of anti-Israel sentiment on campus.
“Colonizing Palestine,” offered by the school’s Colonialism Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies departments, will “explore the history and culture of modern Palestine and the centrality of colonialism in the making of this contested and symbolically potent territory.”
While classic anti-Semitism still outnumbers Israel-related incidents three-to-one, Israel-related incidents are far more likely to create a hostile campus for Jewish students.
In a Facebook post late last month, an incoming residential assistant and former student-government member at Stanford University, Hamzeh Daoud, wrote that he would “physically fight Zionists on campus next year […] after I abolish your ass I’ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish [Israel].”
In a Facebook post, an incoming residential assistant and former student-government member at Stanford University, Hamzeh Daoud, wrote that he would “physically fight Zionists on campus next year […] after I abolish your ass I’ll go ahead and work every day for the rest of my life to abolish [Israel].”
“The fact that this is our eighth Student Leadership Conference, with one of the highest attendance records to date, means that students who support Israel are still plagued by hatred-filled anti-Zionist campaigns on campus,” said Aviva Rosenschein, CAMERA’s international campus director.
At the University of Minnesota, where a pro-BDS resolution passed in March, J Street U refused to join pro-Israel groups in a campaign against the vote, and in a Facebook post urged the Hillel there to be more critical of Israel.
