Howard’s opinion disregards academia

By KAREN RAPPAPORT & LAURIE JOSEPHS on February 26, 2014 in OPINIONS - No comments

Responding to articles and letters from us and other alumnae/i, Katherine Howard ’12 purports to offer her own “case for academic freedom” (The Miscellany News, “Vassar BDS sentiments not shared by all,” 2.19.14). Thank you, Howard, for providing an excellent example of what the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement is actually about. As your letter makes clear, you are not concerned with Israel’s supposed wrongdoing—much less about trying to persuade Israel to correct alleged misdeeds—but with Israel’s “wrong-being”. For you and other BDS proponents, Israel has no right to exist.

It should be an uphill battle to convince the world that the only stable liberal democracy in the Middle East should dissolve itself. After all, it was almost 67 years ago that the UN recommended (through UN Resolution 181) partition of the land in order to create a Jewish state, and, thereafter admitted that state into the United Nations. But Howard shows us how surprisingly easy it can be, if one assumes the audience is intellectually lazy or already indoctrinated.  READ THE ARTICLE HERE

NOTE: This is a great rebuttal published yesterday in the VASSAR COLLEGE Student newspaper, the Miscellany News. You may want to Read the Original Howard Piece Here first and see what prompted this elegant reply. Vassar College has recently been the scene of action by anti-Hillel, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and pro-BDS students. As we've previously pointed out this has not gone unnoticed, including an editorial peice in the Wall Street Journal, the Times of Israel and today a letter from the President of Vassar to alumni calling on all for "respectful" dialogue. 

Meet the Jewish students who are taking on the Jewish establishment

Philip Weiss on February 24, 2014  Published in MondoWeiss

From the Article: 

"In the last few days I have talked to several young Jews who are part of the historic Open Hillel movement that is determined to break down the doors on the official Jewish conversation about Israel and allow young people to think for themselves. For me the movement is as glorious as other impulses toward social justice from young Jews, including their participation in the 1960s Freedom Rides. But these students are modest.

“Is it a revolution?” I asked Naomi Dann of Vassar. “I wouldn’t call it that yet,” she said. “It’s a call for change.”

Vassar is one of two schools that have now declared themselves Open Hillel’s; they reject Hillel International’s “Israel guidelines” on participation in campus chapters that exclude those who seek to “delegitimize” Israel or who have endorsed boycott of Israel."

And later we see this in response to the rhetorical question: "who are the 'brave' Jewish Students?"

They’re young Jews who are dedicated to free thinking. When I visited Vassar, Henry Rosen, a freshman, told me that the Jewish Union had given him a place to explore his Judaism and his Jewishness, and that he considers himself an anti-Zionist; he does not see a need for a Jewish state. Naomi Dann told me that some of the students who voted to open up the Hillel are Zionists, and some are Israelis. She herself is a member of the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. She recently published an article, co-authored with Nicole Massad, opposing the Vassar president’s opposition to the boycott movement and expressing sympathy for the BDS program.

Meantime, Dann helps to lead Shabbat dinners. By email she told me that the Jewish community was hospitable to her values:

I originally joined the VJU first semester of my freshman year because there was an opening for the position of social justice chair and that was what I was interested in doing. I never expected to be involved (especially not to this extent) in Jewish life in college, but found myself in a welcoming Jewish community that became a home to me at Vassar in a number of ways. Jewishness is important to me because of the strong bonds of community that this identity has allowed me to develop. My connection to Judaism is rooted in the experience of community, I consider myself to be asecular, atheist Jew. (I’m definitely on the most secular and left side 

of the VJU though, not representative of the community as a whole at all).

NOTE: How can she live with being in a WELCOMING JEWISH COMMUNITY when her intent is the DESTRUCTION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL? DID SHE TELL THEM THAT WAS HER PURPOSE FOR BEING THERE?

"Dann and Rosen and Sam Basch, a third member of VJU I met, said they were thrilled by their declaration and that it had come about via a thorough democratic process of deliberation in which the overwhelming majority had supported it.

Some students expressed concerns about what their parents would say, but Basch, Rosen and Dann all had their parents behind them.

“My parents have just praised me for taking a stand and doing something,” Basch said. She said her support for the statement came out of a dedication to “inclusivity and against censorship, to creating a pluralistic community… and providing a space for a variety of issues to be discussed.”

You may read the whole artice:
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NOTE: There is just so much wrong here. "Open Hillel" is saying that they disagree with Hillel but rather than stepping aside from Hillel's guidelines they would rather mock Hillel and call themselves "Open Hillel". This is an insult. Furthermore, A generation of Proud Jews who found themselves on the razor's edge of history, and the sole survivors of the greatest genocidal movement in the history of mankind, have every right to decide that they do not wish to sit down with others who are equally committed to their destruction. "Never Again" is a valid response. A dialogue with those who seek your destruction, who seek your demise and do so using heinous threats and outright lies, seems unacceptable to coherent adults. 

If these so-called student leaders  "are as interested and involved in the Israel/Palestine debate as they claim to be and still thinks it's great to have an "Open Hillel" to debate if Israel should be eliminated as a Jewish state because it's like apartheid South Africa or because it's like Nazi Germany, one can only wonder how open-minded they would be e.g. about debates suggesting that Islam justifies pedophilia because of Mohammed's marriage to Aisha, or that Muslims tend to be terrorist sympathizers because so many terrorist acts are committed in the name of Islam. 

In other words, they would understand very well that some issues simply aren't worthy of debate -- and that you're a bigot if you think they are -- but curiously, when it comes to Israel, anything goes."

(h/t to PM-B)

FURTHERMORE: Dann says she considers herself to be "a secular atheist Jew". Well, where I come from those folks are called evangelical Christians or U-Us. Um, my sarcasm aside, this mockery of our ancient faith from someone claiming to be in a position of leadership at least helps some understand the utter lack of respect. In her atheistic-secular view of her world, perhaps she is unable to see the depth of offensiveness of her actions. My Bubbe and my Zayde would not like to sit down with their Concentration Camp Commandants and talk about their "feelings" at an "Open Hillel Brunch" My good friends from Harlem do not want to have a chat and a cup of tea with the Grand Dragon and the Grand Cyclops who remain fully commited to shipping them back to Africa while retaining their women for future use. 

That said, I wonder if it is true that the parents of these "remarkable" kids are so proud of them? These children who state that they see NO NEED FOR A JEWISH STATE? Really, mom and dad? 

One is certainly allowed to believe whatever one wants. And form your own group to get your views out there. But be honest, please. Don't pretend to be a part of Hillel, when you are absolutely NOT a part of Hillel. Don't pretend to be a JEW when you do not speak for Jews at all and make it clear you have no idea what it even means to be a Jew. And please, don't lie. Your proud parents should at least have taught you that.