March 30, 2015 – As part of Open Hillel’s national tour, three Jewish veterans of the Civil Rights movement spoke in Ann Arbor this evening in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Over one hundred people attended the event, which was co-sponsored by the University of Michigan student group Jews Allied for Social Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace at the University of Michigan, University of Michigan Community Action Social Change, and University of Michigan Organizational Studies.
Category Archives: Articles
On the Ground in Israel—an Interview with Michael Argaman*
JP: Two weeks ago you went to Israel to vote and now that you are back in the United States could you share with us some of your encounters in Israel that you find meaningful and would give our readers information that they would not necessarily get from the media.
Michael Argaman: I participated in an event that I think exemplifies what Israelis do on the ground, in various civic activities on a regular basis and not just in the heat of election time. I am talking here about Israeli and Palestinian civilians who don’t give up on the idea of a peace agreement. There are obviously a number of organizations like Combatants for Peace and Women Wage Peace, which are involved in making an Israeli Palestinian agreement part of the public discourse. The group that I would like to mention is one that would seem the least likely, bereaved family members; this group has been tirelessly active for a number of years.
Dozens of Jewish Leaders and Professionals Condemn Hillel International for Threatening Litigation over Swarthmore Hillel Programming—by Open Hillel
March 22, 2015 — Nearly one hundred Rabbis, professors, Jewish professionals, and Jewish leaders from around the country are calling upon Hillel International to stop driving away its students.
The Jewish leaders’ statement came after Hillel International threatened to sue Swarthmore College over Swarthmore Hillel’s planned Israel-Palestine programming. Rather than bow to legal pressure and censor their programming, Swarthmore Hillel’s student board voted to change their name. They made this decision following a two-hour discussion open to all members of the Jewish community on campus.
We Need Your Help–by Open Hillel*
We need your help.
Last Monday, Hillel International threatened legal action against Swarthmore College. Why? Because Jewish students wanted to bring Jewish Civil Rights Veterans to speak in Swarthmore Hillel.
Hillel International’s actions are shocking, unethical, and counter to their mission of supporting Jewish life on campus. We need to let them know that suing students is unacceptable.
Call Hillel International CEO Eric Fingerhut and tell him — don’t sue your students!
Students at Swarthmore Hillel have spent the past year carefully crafting programming on Israel-Palestine that is inclusive, engaging, and intellectually rigorous. They’re bringing in a variety of speakers to discuss Israel-Palestine, including Jewish Civil Rights heroes Dorothy Zellner, Ira Grupper, Larry Rubin, and Mark Levy. Yet rather than supporting these student-initiated endeavors to discuss racism and social justice, Hillel International is trying to censor them — through the basest means possible.
How long, O Lord, will You always forget me?—by Peter Eisenstadt
How long, O Lord, will You always forget me?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long shall I cast about for counsel,
sorrow in my heart all day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Look at me, answer me, O Lord, my God
Restore the luster to my eyes
lest I sleep the sleep of death
lest my enemies say, “ I have overcome him”
my foes exult when I totter.
I have been reading the Book of Psalms in recent weeks. This, cobbled together from two translations, is most of psalm 13. (I will leave the last verse until later.) It describes a person who keeps on looking for God, and keeps on finding that God has left the premises. It describes a person who wants to be vindicated, who has been repeatedly defeated by numerous enemies, and who expects God to help. But God doesn’t. God apparently doesn’t care. The psalmist is humiliated and tormented.
Netanyahu’s Gambit –by Michael Aronson
The ploy worked, and unless Israeli President Reuven Rivlin throws a curve ball, Benjamin Netanyahu will be the Israeli Prime Minister for another term. It is almost a foregone conclusion that Netanyahu will staff the new government with a cast of characters culled from Israel’s hard right-wing that won him the election. Despite Netanyahu’s politicking over recent news cycles to roll back his Monday disavowal of a two-state solution – as of Thursday, a two-state solution is back on the table, and was never really off the table in the first place – people aren’t buying it, and international forces are already mobilizing to force the issue: Israel must work towards a Palestinian state in actual fact, or international recognition of a Palestinian state will be an actual fact.
When A Leader Transgresses– By Matia Kam*
6th century synagogue in Gaza
Chapter four in Parshat VaYikra (Leviticus 1-5) picks up a specific sacrifice, the one that is offered when a person (in Hebrew: nefesh) inadvertently transgresses. The chapter begins with the words, “When a person unwittingly incurs guilt”—to speak to what is involved when any person falters without an intention to do so. Interestingly, what follows is not a set of instructions for what any individual should do; instead the text offers a detailed category of people in leadership who offend unintentionally. It focuses on three kinds of leaders, the spiritual (the anointed priest), the judicial court system (known as the Sanhedrin) and the political leader (Nasii, in Hebrew, or king). Only at the end of the chapter does the text come back to discuss the person, in the singular, anyone (in Hebrew: nefesh ahat).
Netanyahu: Lunacy or Selfish Lunacy?—by Michael Aronson
Yesterday, seeking nationalist right-wing support to clinch re-election in Israel’s March 17, 2015 elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will say no to a Palestinian state if Likud is re-elected. In essence, a Likud win means that a two-state solution, where a Jewish state coexists with a Palestinian state, is dead.
On one level, this tells us nothing new. Netanyahu’s refusal to heed international pressure to cease construction and settlement activities clearly meant to obstruct the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank is clear enough evidence that this was his intention all along. But Netanyahu’s announcement puts other forces into play, forces whose potency was limited so long as a one-state agenda remained hearsay and not policy, forces whose legitimacy is now tied to the outcome of elections now bootstrapped to a public referendum.
Combatants for Peace on the Eve of the Israeli Elections—by David Langerman**
Bibli, you failed. Go Home.
I am a citizen with no public microphone but I believe in civic responsibility and I try to do what I can to bring a peaceful message to the streets of my town. I carry in my car a large poster of Combatants for Peace ’73 that says: “Bibi You Failed, Go Home.” I park my car for several hours in different places around town. The most remarkable and encouraging sign that I take from my action is that no one has vandalized my car. In the last elections if I had done it, some right-wing zealots would have smashed my windows and destroyed my car. The fact that my car is intact is a promising sign of the time, that the violence of the right has lost some of its legitimacy and appeal. It is no longer so cool. There are more voices for change and peace that have gained ground in the public domain and that is very encouraging.
At the Negev–by Kathleen Wilkinson
The Jewish Federation of Rochester sponsored an Israeli trip in February 2015. We had 67 people, half of us being first-timers. The following is my attempt to begin to understand.
It rained all but one day of the trip. Not steady, but enough to keep things damp. From Tel Aviv to Bahad Echad, where IDF officers are trained, then early evening spent in a Bedouin camp, minus camel rides (thank goodness) but yet again eating piles of delicious food. Well after dark, in the pouring rain, we arrived at the hotel at Mitzpe Ramon. We saw nothing but the hotel room that night.