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Michigan. Three anti-Israel activists were arrested at the University of Michigan
during a protest of an event hosted by Students Supporting Israel (SSI) featuring two former IDF soldiers. About 150 people joined the demonstration organized by a network of student groups. University police said the arrests occurred after protesters blocked a parking garage and ignored orders to move. Melissa Overton, deputy chief of campus police, said those arrested -- none affiliated with the university -- face charges including resisting and obstructing police and attempting to disarm an officer.
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Anti-Israel protesters at the University of Michigan. (Source: Zayd Ahmad/Michigan Daily) |
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MIT. The 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a discrimination lawsuit that took aim at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
for its response (or lack thereof) to anti-Israel protests on campus over the past few years. The plaintiffs argued that the demonstrations made Jewish students feel unsafe. The court ruling stated that “By gathering together in groups on campus, disrupting campus tranquility, and impeding travel for many students, the protestors did not render their speech antisemitic, much less unprotected.”
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Yale. A former Israeli Prime Minister and a former Palestinian Authority foreign minister spoke at a packed hall at Yale University. They promoted peace and a two-state solution in an event that was free of the rancor and audience disruptions of the past few years. Israel’s Ehud Olmert (in person) and the Palestinian Authority’s Nasser al-Qudwa (virtually) called on those interested in peace to look forward, not backwards. And in a note of sarcastic optimism,
al-Qudwa urged Yalies to play a constructive role: “You are a very prestigious university—you are going to be lawyers, most of you, expensive lawyers—and we will rely on you to find us a good ideology and a political solution.”
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Ehud Olmert (at center on stage) and Nasser al-Qudwa (on screen) address Yale students. (Source: Sasha Cabral, Contributing Photographer, Yale Daily News) |
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University of California. Hollywood talent agent Jay Sures was honored by LA’s Jewish Federation last week at a glitzy event attended by showbiz luminaries. Sures, a University of California Regent, last year was targeted by anti-Israel student protesters from UCLA
who defaced his house with red ‘bloody hand’ paint, surrounded his wife’s car and chanted “intifada revolution.” Later, fake “wanted” posters criticizing him and another Jewish regent were discovered on the University of California, Berkeley campus. At the Federation event, Sures praised his wife for standing her ground during the protest: “Don’t mess with a recently converted 5-foot-10 Slovakian Jew.”
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('Bloody’ handprints on Sures’ house. Source: Dylan Winward/Daily Bruin) |
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Cornell. Professor Karim-Aly Kassam sparked outrage after the Cornell University student newspaper ran his op-ed comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, complete with artwork showing a bloodied Star of David and SS symbol. The paper pulled the image after a backlash. An editor later defended Kassam’s piece, arguing he didn’t “equate” Israel with Nazis, but instead just wrote that it’s “not unlike” them. As a
Sun rebuttal to Kassam and the editor said, that’s not nuance, it’s nonsense. “In framing Jews as evil as the Nazis,” the response warned, “you create a framework wherein attacking Jews is not only morally permissible, but almost a moral imperative.”
DEEPER: For more about Holocaust-related tropes and other pernicious forms of antisemitism, read ADL’s Antisemitism Uncovered guide.
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Canada. In an angry faculty vote at McGill University, the McGill Association of University Teachers (MAUT) voted 104–8 to endorse an academic and cultural boycott
of Israeli universities; but most of the 900+ members of the group did not cast votes. The resolution calls Israeli institutions complicit in “genocide” and “apartheid.” Several Jewish faculty voiced concern over the vote’s fairness, including Jewish studies professor Eric Caplan, who said, “If we really wanted to understand each other this would not be the framework that we would be using.” He described the meeting as “chaotic and heated,” after discussion was cut short and some professors walked out in protest. Though supporters of the decision called it “historic,” we might call it performative since it is nonbinding
and a statement from the school flatly asserted that the vote does not affect the university. They have no plan to reconsider their partnerships.
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Texas. At the University of Houston and Rice University, Houston Hillel’s “Spread Cream Cheese Not Hate” campaign did what free bagels and T-shirts do best:
get college students to stop, talk and of course, eat. But beneath the upbeat event was a serious message, one that hit home this fall. Nearly half (49%) of the students who participated reported witnessing antisemitism or hate, and almost a third had personally experienced it. These worrisome levels align with ADL’s data
showing elevated campus hate. Every respondent in this Texas campaign who experienced hate identified as Jewish. “That’s painful to hear,” said organizer Katia Sokolov, “but it validates why programs like this exist.” While the cream cheese is gone, the impact persists. Students are still wearing the shirts and answering passersby who are curious as to what “Spreading Cream Cheese, Not Hate” actually means. That’s when the real learning takes place.
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(Source: Houston Hillel) |
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Liberty. A new Center for Israel is being launched by the evangelical Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. As the school’s Provost and Chief Academic Officer Scott Hicks describes it, “This new center offers an extraordinary opportunity for our Liberty students to enrich their academic experience and deepen their intellectual and theological understanding of both historic and contemporary issues related to Israel.” The center’s programming kicks off in the spring.
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