SUPER UW ATTEMPTS TO BAR JEWISH GROUP FROM CULTURAL FESTIVAL
Fundamentally the University experience should be centered on exposure to a diversity of cultures and ideas. Thus of all places, it is most jarring when this value is challenged on our nation’s campuses.
SUPER UW, an anti-Israel student group affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine have failed in their sustained efforts to prevent Hillel, the largest and most prominent Jewish student organization on the University of Washington campus from participating in the Middle Eastern Student Commission (MESC) Culture Festival held this past Saturday. The annual festival celebrates the cultures and countries of the Middle East.
Dozens of faith and culture based groups join the festival annually, celebrating the heritage, foods, cultures and traditions of over a dozen middle eastern countries. Yet with the wide diversity of participants, SUPER UW objected only to the inclusion of the sole Jewish group represented at the festival.
Despite the protestations of SUPER UW, the Hillel students manned a booth representing Israeli and Jewish culture at the May 4th event. This led SUPER UW to issue an angry statement on Saturday morning expressing their dismay at being “forced” by the University to allow Hillel’s participation.
The anti-Israel group also demanded an apology from the University for asking festival participants to pledge “to maintain an inclusive and non-political environment” and “to ensure a family-friendly, safe, and fun time for everyone”. Said SUPER UW, “Although the statement above claims that the goal of the event is to maintain a “non-political environment” the very presence of Hillel and the representation of a violent settler colonial state is both political and unquestionably neither “family-friendly” nor safe for Palestinian students. “
SUPER UW’s campaign against Hillel is part of a wider trend of antisemitic incidents on US campuses and in the United States as a whole. The U.S. Jewish community experienced near-historic levels of antisemitism in 2018, including a doubling of antisemitic assaults – according to new data from the ADL. The AMCHA initiative, which tracks antisemitism on college campuses has documented 702 incidents of antisemitic activity that occurred on U.S. college and university campuses in 2018 alone.
Pingback: Academic year ends with students and faculty policing Israel-related events. Antisemitism is normalized as BDS-connected academics and politicians make absurd claims regarding Jews and Israel. - Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS), SPME BDS Monitor
Pingback: Academic year ends with students and faculty policing Israel-related events. Antisemitism is normalized as BDS-connected academics and politicians make absurd claims regarding Jews and Israel. - Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS), SPME BDS Monitor
Pingback: Academic year ends with students and faculty policing Israel-related events. Antisemitism is normalized as BDS-connected academics and politicians make absurd claims regarding Jews and Israel. - Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS), SPME BDS Monitor
This is more proof that a college education in the US has become an indoctrination and brainwashing experience. Where is the teaching of doing research and seeking truth before showing oneself as a fool? these students are letting themselves be brainwashed, and they’re paying a heavy price, not just in tuition, but in future prospects. Where did they get the idea that Israel is a “violent settler colonial state”? Obviously they know nothing about Israel. What they are is useful fools for propagandist anti-Semites. I’m assuming that not one of them had the brains to go and talk to the Hillel reps and find out what Israel really is like, or at least why it is not a violent settler colonial state. Failing that, I suggest that the anti-Semites take some time off from their worthless classes and go to the Jewish Agency and find some real Israelis they can talk to.
Thanks for this info
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This began with the push for the Open-Hillel crap by Jstreet from years ago. This is just the next step in delegitimizing Jewish life on college campuses. The so-called major national Jewish orgs are not doing anything about this is because they are run by shmendricks and losers who are only interested in their own importance and not protecting our children.