Amid this week being Palestinian Rights Awareness Week at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, pro-Israel campus students and Hillel professionals disagree on the appropriate approach toward countering the latest installation of anti-Israel bias. While some campus activists want to fight the initiative head-on, Hillel professionals have been counseling the students to "lay low." (Israel HaYom, http://tinyurl.com/yyq6axpd )
SOME PEOPLE (Hillel “leadership”) never learn.
When the nazis seized power in Germany, most German Jews said it was just a passing thing and that Germany would soon rid itself of the nazis.
When the nazis promulgated anti-Jewish laws, the Jews refused to see the “writing on the wall.” They were “good Germans” and a few even served in the German army in WW 1.
Besides, these good German Jews were in all appearances Germans, not shtetle Jews with caftans and peyot; Jews who spoke German better than yiddish or Hebrew.
When they had the chance to either organize resistance or get out, they did neither, at least not effectively.
There were exceptions to the rule; unfortunately more than six million Jews were NOT in that number.
Jews, especially Jewish “leadership” MUST know that burying their heads in the sand will NOT protect us.
FORTUNATELY, according to the Israel HaYom article (ibid.), there are some Jews who understand “Never Again.” Jews who won’t cower and bury their heads in the sand.
The week-long initiative, promoted by Kristina Gupta, an assistant professor at the school's Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, "is dedicated to raising awareness about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the importance of recognizing Palestinian rights."
Students reached out to Hillel International for assistance on fighting back against the event but were met with advice to let it pass without creating any additional attention.
Wake Forest junior Joshua Sokoloff told JNS that the Zionist Organization of America, Students Supporting Israel and StandWithUs have more of an on-campus presence than Hillel.
"Hillel International states they are deeply involved with Israel, and donors give money to Hillel for specifically this reason," he told JNS.
"Organizations such as SSI, ZOA and StandWithUs have reached out to us to provide support. They have been pivotal in helping us counteract this poorly organized week that has taken actions to attack Israel."
"It is times like this where we cannot be silent and need to stand in unison to protect Jewish students on campus," Sokoloff added.
I wonder how Kristina Gupta, an assistant professor at the school's Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, jumps from the department’s objective to condemning Israel – the ONLY country in the region where women have equal rights – to “raising awareness about the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the importance of recognizing Palestinian rights."
Has Ms. Gupta ever BEEN to Israel?
Where does she get her misinformation?
I seriously doubt that Hillel the Elder, for whom the Hillel organization is named, would continence Hillel’s stance.
Allowing anti-Jewish attacks — no matter if directed against Jews as individuals or against Israel — is, to this scrivener’s mind, akin to bowing down to idols; the gods of hate and ignorance.
Jews are not alone in fighting discrimination. We have allies among non-Jews.
We also have JNS and ZOA, as mentioned above. Then there is JDL. (The ADL is not mentioned in the article.)
Apparently, Wake Forest has become a school of choice for Jew and Israel bashers. The Israel HaYom article quotes Phillip Yurchenko, a junior who is president of Wake Forest's chapter of Students Supporting Israel, "For years, anti-Semitism at WFU was bubbling just under the surface. "Professor [Charles] Kennedy's infamous class on the Middle East has been discussed endlessly. Jewish students are warned to not take the class because it is so incredibly biased. Multiple WFU professors have signed on to BDS, which is a movement with the aim of destroying the Jewish state.
Hillel’s stance is not to make waves; keep everything low key.
Not making waves and keeping everything low key allowed the nazis to slaughter six million — 6,000,000 — Jews simply because they were Jews. (The six million non-Jews who died at the nazis hands should never be forgotten — the Roma were almost completely exterminated.)
Anti-Semites, anti-Israel bigots will not “go away” if they are ignored by the people they hate.
Now is the time make waves; now is NOT the time to cower, to hide.
This is the U.S., not Germany.
While the liberal Jews bow to the gods of self-hate, a few Jews are standing up in self-defense.
Hillel, the organization, has shown its true colors.
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
