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Opinion | Where Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Do and Dont Overlap – The New York Times

Posted By on March 13, 2024

Every time I write, as I did last week, that I dont think anti-Zionism is necessarily antisemitic, I get emails from Jewish readers that are angry, disappointed or sometimes simply baffled. Israel is the political entity through which the Jewish people exercises its natural right of self-determination and control over its own fate, said one typical recent message. How is singling out the Jewish people to deprive it of those rights not antisemitic?

To answer this question fully would take more than a single column, but I want to make a brief attempt, because lately, in reaction to the grotesque suffering in Gaza, two ugly, intertwined trends are gaining steam. Well-intentioned opponents of Jewish nationalism, some Jewish themselves, are being falsely smeared as antisemites. At the same time, antisemitism is cloaking itself in anti-Zionism, with people spitting out the word Zionist when they really seem to mean Jew.

My own views on Zionism are ambivalent and conflicted. Im a secular Jew with no particular attachment to Israel, spiritual or otherwise, though I also recognize that my ability to hold myself aloof from the country is enabled by the great privilege of an American passport. I think the idea of Israel as a colonial entity that will eventually be dismantled is a malign fantasy most Jewish Israelis dont have anywhere else to go but I also recognize that the countrys creation cant be disentangled from the dispossession of the Palestinians.

Yes, as Zionists often point out, Palestinians were far from the only people made refugees as maps were redrawn in the wake of World War II. After Israels creation, more Jews were uprooted from Arab and Muslim countries than Arabs expelled from their homes in historic Palestine. It is not Israels fault that some of its neighbors kept displaced Palestinians as stateless refugees rather than integrating them as full citizens. But I could never blame a Palestinian for thinking it obscenely unfair that I have a right to return to a country to which I have no family connection, while Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 do not.

I also understand why many Jews, the survivors of millenniums of attempts to destroy them as a people, put their need for national self-determination above other, competing values. But one neednt hate Jews to make a different moral calculus.

Right now, the relentless growth of settlements in the West Bank has created a one-state reality on the ground, although one in which people have very different rights and freedoms depending on their ethnic and religious background. There are people of good will who think the way out of this insupportable situation lies in the fight for equal democratic rights in a single state for everyone living in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It is time for liberal Zionists to abandon the goal of Jewish-Palestinian separation and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality, Peter Beinart wrote in Jewish Currents in 2020.

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Opinion | Where Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism Do and Dont Overlap - The New York Times

Columbia University sued over suspension of Palestinian and Jewish student groups – Middle East Eye

Posted By on March 13, 2024

The New York Civil Liberties Union, in collaboration with Palestine Legal, filed a lawsuit against Columbia University on Tuesday for the suspension of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) chapters.

For decades, Columbia students have been at the forefront of speaking out against segregation, war and apartheid and SJP and JVP sit squarely in this tradition," Palestine Legal senior staff attorney Radhika Sainath said.

Universities must abide by their own rules and may not punish student groups speaking out for Palestinian rights in the moment when they are most essential even if donors and lobby groups complain."

Columbia University, based in New York City,suspended the student groups in November.

Explaining the decision, Columbia's special committee on campus safety described the groups as having "repeatedly violated university policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorised event Thursday afternoon [9 November] that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation".

The ban means that the two groups would neither receive university funds to operate nor be allowed to conduct any activities on campus.

On 29 February, the New York Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Columbia University's administration.

'Negligence': Columbia students furious at university after skunk water doused on protesters

The letter demanded the immediate reinstatement of both the SJP and JVP chapters.

It highlighted that the university had unfairly and unlawfully suspended the groups for their involvement in a peaceful demonstration and a temporary art exhibit advocating for Palestinian rights.

According to the lawsuit, on multiple occasions the university breached its established protocols to penalise SJP and JVP, "baselessly and irresponsibly" attributing allegations of threats and intimidation to the groups.

This has led to serious worries that the university's decisions were improperly influenced by the political viewpoints of the student organisations, particularly their advocacy for Palestinian rights, the lawsuit says.

Ivy League institutions should not attract students who value justice and equality if they do not want to be held accountable for the ideals that they claim to uphold,"Maryam Alwan, an organiser with Columbias chapter of SJP, said.

"As a Palestinian-American student, I should have the same right to speak out on my campus as everyone else - and no amount of targeted policy changes or illegitimate suspensions will prevent us from advocating for the Palestinian people.

Columbia is the latest school to be hit with a lawsuit, but not the only one. On Friday last week, a group of faculty members at the University of Pennsylvania sued the university to stop the school from complying with a request from Congress to hand over all material, teaching or otherwise, related to pro-Palestinianactivity and sentiments on campus.

It comes after the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were called in for a contentious congressional briefing in December over the large number of pro-Palestine rallies taking place on campus.

Since that hearing - in which the protests were characterised by unchecked claims of being sympathetic to Hamas and calling for violence against Jews - the presidents of both Harvard and Penn resigned.

In January, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a series of letters to Harvard,Columbia,MITandPenn,requesting they provide the committee with documents related to the schools' "response to antisemitism on its campus".

"The Committee is engaged in a partisan witch hunt by seeking syllabi, academic papers, and other material from Penn faculty of all ranks, with the search highlighting keywords like Jew, Israel, antisemitism, Palestine, Gaza, resistance, settler colonialism and diversity, equity and inclusion, to name most of their criteria," the Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine (PFJP), a group of faculty, staff and graduate students, said in a statement shared with Middle East Eye.

The legal complaint was filed last Friday by the PFJP and seeks an injunction that would bar Penn from sharing the information with Congress, which the lawsuit states includes "student information by Penn deemed confidential" under federal law.

"Penn's compliance with the Committee's letter threatens the privacy, safety, academic freedom and careers of the individual plaintiffs and of many other members of the Penn Faculty for Justice in Palestine," reads the lawsuit.

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Columbia University sued over suspension of Palestinian and Jewish student groups - Middle East Eye

Jew Hatred May Be Up, But So Is Our Power to Fight It – Jewish Journal

Posted By on March 13, 2024

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Jew Hatred May Be Up, But So Is Our Power to Fight It - Jewish Journal

Jonathan Glazer is just a useful idiot for the enemies of the Jewish people – opinion – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By on March 13, 2024

The natural response to Jonathan Glazers acceptance speech of an Oscar for is recent movie The Zone of Interest, is one of utter disgust and disappointment.

Glazer specifically said that he refutes his Jewish ancestry and secondly accuses Israel (whom he doesnt mention by name) of hijacking the Holocaust by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many, for so many, innocent people.

These days, such an accusation by a Jew is probably the most damning accusation imaginable, and when it is leveled at us by the director of an apparently highly successful film, which focuses on the Hoess family of the commander of the Auschwitz Birkenau death camp, and purports to deal with where dehumanization leads, it is hard to ignore.

To add to the irony, this past Friday, Yediot Achronot had a very lengthy profile on Glazer by Benjamin Tobias, their film correspondent, who described Glazer as a proud Jew.

The truth is, however, that Glazers comments should hardly surprise anybody. How many times have we recently read about Jewish groups that support the Palestinians? Just the other day, I read an article in The Jerusalem Post about the dedication of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, attended by President Isaac Herzog. Among those who came to greet the president were members of a Dutch Jewish anti-Zionist organization called Erev Rav, which organized the protest together with Jews Against Genocide, the local Palestinian community, and Socialists International.

Jewish groups of this sort have emerged in many Jewish communities, especially in the United States, such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow, and have become much more active and visible in the wake of the Hamas mass murders of October 7.

For those of us born after 1948, such criticism of Israel is unusual and hardly popular. The establishment of the State of Israel turned many opponents of Zionism into ardent supporters of the lone Jewish state.

Who remembers the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and the opposition to Zionism of numerous Reform rabbis? Who remembers the anti-Zionist socialist Bund, one of the largest Jewish parties in Poland? Or the notorious Yevsekstiya, the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party, whose goal was for all Russian Jews to join the party and abandon Judaism? In fact, Zionism was a small minority movement in world Jewry until the middle of the 20th century.

Three events changed practically the entire Jewish world the Holocaust, the establishment of an independent sovereign Jewish state, and Israels stunning victory in the Six Days War. From a distinct minority of world Jewry, Zionism became the majority ideology of the committed Jews of the world, and one of the most important elements of modern Jewish identity.

So, it is particularly unpleasant when successful and famous Jews accuse the state of Israel publicly and unfairly of exploiting the Holocaust to commit war crimes, probably the most disgusting accusation one can make against the Jewish state. But we should not overestimate the impact of such accusations. In most cases, they are a function of ignorance, or a desire to find favor with audiences who have little knowledge of the circumstances; or out of fear of losing fans.

As Jewish history teaches us, there will always be useful [Jewish] idiots like Jonathan Glazer, and some of the dangerous anti-Zionists will be Jewish. The best way to combat their lies is to teach the history of Zionism and Israels efforts to make peace with our neighbors, and expose the extremism of our enemies and the crimes committed against us, as painful as that might be.

The writer is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs.

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Jonathan Glazer is just a useful idiot for the enemies of the Jewish people - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

Judith Butler and the Question of ‘Who is a Jew?’ – The Times of Israel

Posted By on March 13, 2024

I think its fair to say that a lot of Jews are pretty upset with philosopher Judith Butler right now. That Butler and other Jewish intellectuals who are highly critical of Israel receive a spotlight in the non-Jewish media is not surprising, but in this case, something else has occurred. In her recent remarks concerning the Hamas attack on Simchat Torah 2023, Butler seemed to frame the horrific acts of violence as potentially justifiable acts of decolonial resistance. Worse still is her insistence that the attack neednt be deemed antisemitic, a position that deliberately erases the Jewish identities of Israeli citizens. This denial of Jewishness is appalling and harms the Jewish collective. It is also abhorrent to think that this can be justified as a legitimate political position of Jewish anti-Israel critics. Hardly surprising was the reaction of an Israeli spokesperson who countered that Butlers remarks cast a shadow over her own Jewish identity.

This moment in Jewish history is forcing the who is a Jew question back into public consciousness, not only as it relates to Butler, but to other Jews who publicly fumbled a defense for the evils perpetrated on that day. However, the ever-constant dilemma over the definition of Jewish identity seems to be trapped in a predictable series of preset antinomies. Religion versus culture, genetics versus communal affiliation, practiced tradition versus shared history and memory, often in some combined form. Some thinkers propose to use the metaphors and characterizations of people, nation, tribe, or family to think beyond the limits of religion, ethnicity, and other more common labels. Of course, there is nothing new about this position. Consider Mordechai Kaplans 1934 Judaism as a Civilization. But the family metaphor, rooted in terms such as the House of Jacob and the Children of Israel, may help offer a practical answer to the dilemma of Judith Butler by asking the following question: Who is family? For some, a simple formula explains it all: anyone invited to a wedding or a funeral is family. And while I might hazard a guess that Judith Butler would not be welcome at a great many Jewish celebrations in the Holy Land, that does not mean she is no longer a member of the Jewish family.

The family metaphor is powerful, but it is a double-edged sword. It can be presented as radically inclusive, but it can also sharply condemn positions the collective deem to be outside the pale. I am certain that many will contend that any Jew who makes a statement that is suggestive of a defense or rationalization of the worst attack of Jews since the Holocaust forfeits any claim to make a determination on the matter of Jewishness. After all, who does that to their own family? How alienated must one be from ones brother, sister, grandmother or grandfather to deny the dignity of their Jewish identities while they sit trapped in a Gazan tunnel? Will this form of discourse effectively challenge those who think that all criticism of Israel is a fair and legitimate exercise of expression? Perhaps not. Jews who view Israel as a White colonial enterprise are unlikely to be shamed into exiting their camp. Regardless, the righteous indignation of Butlers critics must be tempered by the fact that no matter how indefensible one thinks of her position she is hardly a lonely voice these days. But Jewish identity must transcend politics. The Talmudic rabbis teach, af al pi shekhata, Yisrael hu (Sanhedrin 44a), which we might render as: a Jew is a Jew no matter what sin they do. We may feel furious with Jews like Butler, but that cannot diminish their Jewishness, their membership in the Jewish family, even as we might insist on accountability for the harm inflicted upon Jews with their words and behaviors.

I think the family metaphor of Jewish identity is better supported when combined with the Hasidic concept of the Jewish spark (der pintele yid). A Hasidic master might view our situation as a simple case of Jew who, through the troubles and tribulations of everyday life in exile, finds themselves feeling numb to the spark of the divine that resides deep within the recesses of their heart and soul. From a social scientific view, measuring divine sparks is a rather difficult endeavor. I have no doubt the next time a Jewish community survey is commissioned, there will be no effort to measure the pintele yid or its expressions in everyday life. This is a definition of Jewishness that relies on a faith in our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters, no matter the circumstance. Perhaps Jewish communities should take a firmer stance to popularize the celebration of Second Passover (Pesach Sheini), a minor holiday that occurs one month after Passover to commemorate the Israelites who needed a second chance to partake in the celebrations on account of their impurity. The key message is no Jew is beyond hope. This course of action might not immediately dissuade Jews from participating in movements and organizations that contribute to a social environment that threatens Jewish safety everywhere. But perhaps we need to hear this message more than they do. Perhaps banishing Butler from the Jewish family does more harm to us than we might care to admit.

The collective resilience required in these trying times is not a quality we can afford to squander away. That Jews disagree passionately is a given. That we risk offending one another is a necessary risk. Are there lines we shouldnt cross? Obviously. But we must also acknowledge the spark of the divine that ultimately binds us together in shared past, present, and future. Ironically, both Butler and the Hasidic masters would agree that we must view one another as more than mere bodies. Recognition of one another, even amidst disagreement, fosters the empathy and understanding necessary to weather the times ahead. This shared essence, this respect for the divine within each other, is what furnishes us with the strength to build a Jewish future.

Dovi Seldowitz is a PhD student (Sociology) at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Previously, Dovi directed and curated the 2022 Bnai Brith Kabbalah Exhibition and was the recipient of the UNSW University Medal in Sociology and Anthropology for his Honours thesis on Hasidic womens leadership.

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Judith Butler and the Question of 'Who is a Jew?' - The Times of Israel

Hold pride in your Jewish identity – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By on March 13, 2024

To be Jewish is a tangible thing. It is not just an idea; it is a practice and a history. It is a peoplehood, and not just a religious practice. There are real and material components which anchor Jews into their Jewish identities. To be an anchored Jew is to be able to withstand the hurricane of hate which swirls around us in the wider world.

Since publishing my first book on Jewish Pride, I have considered the following model that will support Jews in developing an empowered Jewish identity. Utilizing the Head, Hands and Heart enables us to build a sustainable Jewish Pride movement that educates, inspires, and empowers Jews all over the world to see their Jewishness as a source of pride and never of shame.

To be proud of something, you have to understand it; otherwise, pride is neither developed nor rooted.

Speaking at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles in 2022, Jewish teenagers asked why they should be proud of their Jewishness. They were not being obtuse; rather, they were seeking to deepen their understanding of how they could participate in this movement.

The answer I gave was to understand and explore Jewish history and identity. I told them we had to dispel the notion that Judaism cannot be defined. Jewish history is substantiated by archaeology and epigraphic evidence that vividly illustrates the origins and evolution of the Jewish people in the Southern Levant, specifically the Land of Israel.

This evidence sheds light on our sense of peoplehood, one that is deeply rooted in the indigenous nature of that land. It is this crucial concept that we must instill within our community.

Contrary to what the wider world may argue, the Jewish people are not a faith; we are a distinct people with a profound and emotional connection to our indigenous land. Our history traces back at least 3,200 years, and throughout this time including over 1,300 years of residence in the Land, with varying degrees of sovereigntywe have cultivated and preserved our civilization.

Jews today are intricately linked through a continuum of culture, practice, and belief to our ancestors from millennia ago. It is imperative that every Jew be acquainted with the basic facts of Jewish history, extending beyond the Torah and our foundational tales.

Moreover, without this knowledge, the Jewish narrativeunfolding over thousands of yearsrisks being shaped and interpreted solely by external perspectives. We must emphatically assert that the only people who get to define Jewish identity are Jews themselves. However, to truly embrace and take pride in our identity, we must first know our story.

Jewishness is not an abstract concept; it is deeply grounded in tangible practices and customs that reflect our heritage, which is indigenous to the land of Israel. Our pride movement must be practical and actively engaged with Jewish life.

Being Jewish transcends mere sentiment; it necessitates active participation. The term Judaism, first referenced as Ioudaismos in the second book of Maccabees, is said to have signified acting in the manner of the Judeans. However, due to modern (mis)interpretations of Jewishness, much of Jewish action is often framed solely through the lens of religion.

Yet, while the worship of God has always been central, the active expression of our Jewishness has encompassed much more. It has represented the very essence of our peoplehooda distinct set of practices that distinguished us from those around us.

In his study Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE, E. P. Sanders highlights that Judeans shared a common set of practices and beliefs centered on Mosaic Torah and the remainder of what were jointly regarded by this time as hallowed scriptures. It is therefore clear that modern Jews must also honor our specificity and heritage through Jewish action.

I am a secular Jew; God does not play a role in my Jewish identity. When I recite Kaddish for my late father, despite its traditional meaning, I am not exalting God. Instead, I am honoring my father in the manner that Jews have honored their deceased for over a thousand years. I am forging a connection with my ancestors and with future generations.

This idea can serve as a guiding principle for our Jewish expression. Secular Jews, in particular, must recognize that Jewish practice also belongs to them. Like our ancestors, these rituals are how we express our Jewish identities.

I emphasize again: we are not merely an abstract concept; we are a living, breathing, evolving civilization in which every Jew must actively participate. This does not imply that we will all express our Jewish identities in identical ways. Within the vast spectrum of Jewish law and tradition, each of us can discover something powerful and profound that enables us to express our Jewishness authentically.Imagine a simcha (joyous event) where every Jew in the world gathers. Picture a buffet table overflowing with a variety of delicious morsels representing different Jewish practices and traditions from around the world. Each Jew has the opportunity to rise from their seat and choose their own unique combination of Jewish expressions. This diversity is what makes our community so beautiful, but each of us must rise and choose. Simply put, to be Jewish we must act in the manner of the Jews.

Pride is indeed a feeling. We build and reinforce it through knowledge and action, yet it is a sentiment we must deliberately cultivate. By engaging in discussions and explorations of Jewish identity, history, experiences and practices, we awaken our consciousness to the power of Jewish Pride. Grounded in tangible elements, it is not a fleeting or weightless notion; rather, it is anchored at the very core of being Jewish, rooted in a profound sense of confidence and self-esteem.

While knowledge and action remain crucial, we must foster a sense of connection among individuals, the collective Jewish community, and the past, present and future of the Jewish people. Our existence today as Jews is not coincidental; it is the culmination of our ancestors unwavering dedication to the survival of the Jewish people. They laid the foundation and continually enriched our cultural heritage, enabling us to enjoy a vibrant and thriving Jewish culture worldwide.

Regardless of our geographical locations, all Jews are intricately linked to one another. It is through this sense of connection and belonging that we can foster a collective sense of Jewish Pride. By nurturing Jewish Peoplehood, we empower individuals to recognize their role in the broader tapestry of Jewish history, identity and expression, thereby reinforcing their pride.

The transformative power of pride has propelled a variety of communities forward, igniting a sense of healing and empowerment. Now, it is time for Jews to embrace this extraordinary force and reap its profound benefits.

Jewish Pride must be the path for our future. Through the model of the head, hands and heart, we can embrace our specificity, celebrate our heritage, unite as one people and unlock a boundless source of strength and possibility. Let us boldly embrace Jewish Pride as the guiding light that propels us towards a future of dignity, resilience, and collective empowerment. Together, we will shape a Jewish future that is vibrant and resplendent with the enduring spirit of pride.

Am Yisrael Chai.

The writer is founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, an educator, and the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People. His new book is Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride.

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Hold pride in your Jewish identity - The Jerusalem Post

Documenting the experience of Jews of color in Jewish spaces – opinion – The Jerusalem Post

Posted By on March 13, 2024

In the last five years, amid the racial reckoning in the US, the pandemic, economic challenges, and the October 7 attacks on Israel, the Jews of Color Initiative (JoCI) has made steady progress toward our vision of a Jewish community that reflects racial equity and diversity and centers the leadership of Jews of Color (JoC).

Now in our seventh year, we are beyond the start-up phase of an organization, those first few years of organizational infancy when a few easy wins are often to be had. We are increasingly aware that supporting serious research is strategically vital for advancement and growth in our field.

Our 2021 major research study, Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experience of Jews of Color, documented how Jews of Color view Jewish identity and how they have experienced systemic racism in Jewish spaces. Of course, it was profoundly painful to discover that 80% of study participants have faced discrimination in Jewish settings, particularly in spiritual or congregational environments, and almost 50% have altered how they speak, dress, or present themselves to conform to predominantly white Jewish spaces.

The reports impact was reflected in the direct feedback it garnered reporting data and insights that were lacking.We were told that the Jews of Color Initiative had both an opportunity and responsibility to not only elevate more JoC voices through academic research, but to take that research further. Therefore, in January 2022, the Jews of Color Initiative announced a request for proposals to fund research projects focused on Jews of Color, led by Jewish scholars of Color.

Our RFP [request for proposal] aimed to do this, and we awarded research grants to projects exploring black Jewish womens birth outcomes; education in Latinx-Jewish families; experiences of Asian adoptees; and the perspectives of aging Jews of Color.

By spring 2023, the projects were complete. The topics covered by these studies reflect the complex issues our community must grapple with.

We learned about pregnancy, birth, and postpartum Jewish rituals; that there is enormous power and wisdom that emerges from JoC intersectional identities; and that there is profound value in documenting these rituals as they support spiritual resiliency.

We learned about the connection between birth outcomes and the benefits of health provider-patient shared identity, especially as related to anti-blackness and antisemitism focused on Black Jewish women.

To address perceptions of gender, gendered spaces, settler colonialism, and Hawaiian historical topics, we learned about the relationships between the Kanaka Maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) and Lukaio (Jewish) communities, and the role aha (conference or dialogue) and building haverim (friendship between the Jewish and Kanaka Maoli communities) can have on transformative community relationships.

We learned about Latinx-Jewish families and how being multicultural, multilingual, and racially diverse informs educational and programming choices for their children.

We were taught the history of Asian adoption among Jewish Americans and of adoptees understandings of their Asian-Jewish identities and how systemic structures and changing social circumstances and personal preferences led to the decision of many Jewish families to adopt children from Asia.

We were given insights into how aging Jews of Color are affected by national and global violence and to what extent those events amplify historical trauma and oppression given their histories of being marginalized because of intersecting identities of faith, gender, race, and ethnicity.

THAT WAS just a taste of the new knowledge that now powerfully informs our understanding of ritual, womens health, identity, and education of youth and families. There is much to unpack.

Beyond its specific studies, the research invited us to deeply consider what it means to be, who self-identifies as, and what we mean, when we say, Jews of Color; to examine when a shared understanding and identity is useful, and when it is not; how demographics intersect with racism and colorism; and how the term Jew of Color gives too much deference to whiteness.

Further studies should delve into the differences among Jews of Color and how their lived experiences may differ based on intersectional identities. Understanding these nuances will help guide conversations and interventions for the important work of fighting racism.

What does it mean to be Jewish in the United States? Which narratives are encompassed in the word Jewish?

How do lineal and chosen family backgrounds inform ones relationship to being Jewish?

How do race and racism inform who is, and who is perceived as Jewish?

What do we need to know about the diversity of how US-based Judaism is expressed? How do those expressions inform more than the dominant US narrative about Judaism? Who gets to create and express those narratives?

And how do these ideas inform who defines, conducts, and shares Jewish research?

THIS ENABLES new, data-driven insights for investigation by researchers and practitioners of maternal health, family and elder engagement, and Jewish identity and education, which provide powerful perspectives for the Jewish community and

Just seven years ago our community was still wondering whether Jews of Color were a real population or just unicorns. Now we are wondering how to ensure future funded research opportunities centering on Jews of color and all of our intersectional identities.

All of us in the American Jewish community continue to adjust to life post-October 7, 2023. Antisemitism is now in every bit of the air we breathe. And raw trauma is now part of everyday life. The Jews of Color Initiative knows that especially in the most difficult of times, its very important to focus on efforts that are inclusive, supportive, and promote our ability to thrive. Celebrating research and data about Jewish rituals, our health, our educational experiences, our adoption journeys, and our elders honors the most intimate pathways and connections to Jewish life and legacy. This research and data not only expands what we know about Jews of Color but fortifies the Jewish community, strengthens Jewish identity, and reinforces our Jewish future.

The writer is CEO of the Jews of Color Initiative.

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Documenting the experience of Jews of color in Jewish spaces - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

Feeding Their Fellow Jews to the Crocodile – Commentary Magazine

Posted By on March 13, 2024

I have some bad news: Everyone cant be the last one devoured by the crocodile.

Winston Churchill famously said of those who wouldnt get off the sidelines against Hitler, Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.

Over the weekend, there was an explosion in applications for the honor of being eaten last among Jews in arts and literature. Late Sunday night, the Academy Award for Most Trembling Knees went to Jonathan Glazer, the director who instantly went viral by equating his fellow Jews with the Nazis, but the festivities started earlier in the weekend. The magazine Guernica, which is the literary version of earplugs, accidentally published a Jew and immediately apologized.

The offending writer, whose essay was retracted after a slew of resignations by staffers, refused to serve in the IDF after moving to Israel and spends her days volunteering to help Palestinian children. But she learned an important lesson when the magazine nonetheless threw her under the bus in solidarity, a lesson that Jews have been learning since the French Revolution: To the enlightened Western left, there is no such thing as a good-enough Jew. And so along came the crocodile.

Then on Sunday, we got a pretty rough preview of what was to come. As Hollywood stars were deciding how to accessorize their outfits for the Oscars that evening, many chosestick with me herea bloody hand celebrating the lynching of two Jews. Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, Ava DuVernay, and Ramy Youssef were among the actors who wore a pin of a bloody hand, modeled after a particularly grisly episode. In 2000, two Jews wandered into Ramallah. They were taken into Palestinian police custody, presumably to protect them from the shrieking mob trying to rip them limb from limb with their bare hands. But the mob stormed the building and did its thing, as Kamala Harris might say. One of the killers showed off his blood-drenched hands to cheers from his compatriots outside. The pin is known as the Palestinian hand of resistance.

Now, the defense of these fiends is that they didnt know what the pin meant. On some level, that is believable: Eilish is 22 years old, and rose to music fame during her teen years, so it is possible that she doesnt know much of anything.

But even in Eilishs case, it is unlikely. As some have pointed out, a bloody red hand is pretty universal. You would not be surprised to learn that Billie Eilish Baird OConnell comes from an Irish family, who surely are familiar with the Red Hand of Ulster. The well read among the public probably recognizes the red right hand from Miltons Paradise Lost, in which it signifies Gods vengeance.

The bloody hand pin did not seem to bother anyone, and I suppose in that atmosphereone in which feted industry leaders were parading around alongside a celebration of lynching JewsGlazers weak-kneed grand finale was almost inevitable.

Glazer was awarded an Oscar for his film Zone of Interest, which is about a man who, as I mentioned last night, attains professional success thanks to his ability to ignore the suffering of the Jews around him. It is not, however, autobiographical. The film is about Rudolph Hoess living as a Nazi commandant next to Auschwitz. Though after last night, its unclear whether hes meant to be the villain or the hero of Glazers film.

Hess is actually a perfect subject for a discussion about Jew-devouring crocodiles, and Glazer should know why. The Nazis demonstrated their efficiency and ingenuity by devising a system in which the crocodile actually could eat all the Jews lastor at least at once. In Hesss world, the world Glazer was rewarded for depicting, there was no need for the crocodile to take it one at a time.

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Feeding Their Fellow Jews to the Crocodile - Commentary Magazine

What Does Being Jewish Mean? PW Talks to Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman – Publishers Weekly

Posted By on March 13, 2024

In his new book, prolific author and Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman, whose Renaissance Man resume includes serving as a senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and conceiving the Facebook Oversight Board, explores various contemporary approaches to Judaism in his book, out this week, To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People (FSG).

Why did you write this book?

Because I have kids who are about to go off to college, and that made me think a lot about their Jewish identity, and, by extension, my own. I started plotting this book and thinking about it, three or four years ago. I felt that the time was really ripe for a re-exploration of the most basic questions about what it means to be a Jew today. And that included how people think about God, and their spirituality - or lack of spirituality. It included Israel, which has come to assume a much more central position for a lot of Jews around the world today than it used to. And it also included the idea of Jewishness as a familial feature, that has love and struggle at the same time.

Early on, you pose the question: "What's the point of being a Jew?" Do you feel that you answered that by the book's end?

I think I gave it the old college try. Each Jew will have a different answer, and that's part of the theme of the book, that there are lots of different approaches and answers and each is valid, and as valid as the next. But I do argue that, for me, the point of being a Jew means struggling together with other Jews in a loving familial relation to try to understand how we make sense of God, of Israel, and of our own people.

Apart from the revisions you made following the Hamas massacre of October 7th, how has the book changed from when you began thinking about it?

When I started writing the book, it was much more analytical. It was much more, here are the different points of view that different people have, here's how things have evolved and here's how they're likely to go. It was much less personal. I was resistant to the idea of writing about my own experiences, to the idea of talking about feelings, like love and struggle and I really didn't want to share what I thought. This is my 10th nonfiction book and they're mostly very analytical and historical. I thought this would be a book, sort of like those. And as it turned out, it is in certain ways similar to those other books. But the book is also really different because it's by far my most personal book, it has the most of me in terms of my story, it has the most of me in terms of my psychic, emotional and spiritual and religious life.

I think the most driving challenge across many different branches of Jewishness all center on the question of inclusion and belonging versus separateness and distinctiveness.

In what ways was Moses Maimonides significant to your approach?

Maimonides is, many people think, the most towering single figure in almost 2000 years of Jewish intellectual history. And he's always loomed large in my life. From the time I was six to the time I was 18, I went to a school that was named after him. We studied his work. I studied his work in university. I've written about it as a professor.

One of his most fascinating and least read books is called The Guide of the Perplexed, where he set out to try to explain to thoughtful people of his generation how they might try to explore and resolve the conflicts and contradictions between rational, scientific and philosophical ideas and Jewish spiritual and religious tradition. And he didn't cheat. He didn't make it easy where it was hard. He made it very hard. And although he clearly had very strong senses of what he thought all Jews should believe, he did not dictate answers in the guide. He really tried to let you explore the contradictions, and try to figure out for yourself what to think.

I'm not trying to say that what I'm doing is in any way comparable, but I am trying to take a page from his book in terms of showing tensions, showing contradictions, making them the relevant ones for today because they're different now than they were 50 years or 200 years or 1000 years ago. And then allowing the reader to figure out for himself or herself, what, what that person believes.

What are the contradictions and tensions that you think are most significantly different from the ones from 50 years ago?

I think the most driving challenge across many different branches of Jewishness all center on the question of inclusion and belonging versus separateness and distinctiveness. And Jewishness has always had both of those strands, you know, on the one hand, the Jewish God is always supposed to be the universal God who's the God of everybody. And so therefore, should be welcoming of everybody, every Jew, and also every non-Jew who wants to become part of Jewishness is supposed to be able to join. So that's very inclusive.

At the same time, Jewishness has always had this story about an essential covenant between God and the people of Israel. And that's supposed to be in some sense, an exclusionary covenant. It's special to the Jewish people and it entails obligations and special love and special fear, and sometimes it entails special punishments. It's a very intense relationship and it's not always a well-functioning relationship, but it is, it has exclusionary components. And so you see this tension repeated for different strands of Judaism, you know, for Orthodoxy and Ultra-Orthodoxy, especially for Modern Orthodoxy.

The big challenge now is how can the community be inclusive of gay people, trans people, of women who want to be in leadership positions, without sacrificing its connection to the tradition. For Progressive Jews, a big part of the problem is how can Jews feel a special attachment to them, their own community or a special attachment to Israel that's grounded in social justice. If at the same time, there's a criticism of Israel out there, it's that Israel is not a liberal democracy in the way that some people imagined it would be, or hoped that it would be, and still hoped that it would be, hat creates a tension as well between the particulars of their connection to Israel and the universalism of their commitment to social values, like equality and justice.

How did you change the book after October 7th?

What changed after October 7th was that I had to take a deep breath and realize that there wasn't very much room in that moment for what you might call a lighthearted approach to rethinking God, Israel and Jewish people. There was a tremendous intensity driven by a range of emotions, from intergenerational trauma and the horror of October 7th seen through the lens of the Holocaust and the pogroms to the subsequent wave of pain and misery and empathy that many American Jews feel with respect to the number of Palestinians who have died in Gaza.

And then the generational conflict, which I think we're seeing playing out especially among progressive Jews that I had written about before October 7th as a general theme, the struggle between my generation of progressive American Jews and the college kids who are much more critical of Israel. And suddenly that was playing itself out in this incredibly concrete and immediate way. If the next generation feels that Israel isn't a beacon of social justice, which is what's happening for a lot of young progressive Jews, then the identification with Israel becomes very difficult as a sustaining method for that generation of Jews. And so then the question becomes well, then what is sustaining for that generation of Jews? I think that the underlying conflicts that I was writing about were real, but they were just brought home.

So I think the book got more somber after October 7th. It got less funny. In the course of it getting less funny, it also became a little bit more respectful of the seriousness of the pain engendered by the Israel-Palestine conflict, which I have always taken very seriously. But I was sort of hoping in the book to catch people when I first wrote it at a moment when they were open to reconsideration. And instead the book is coming out in a moment when people are very powerfully, emotionally and psychically, affected by current events. So I needed to also make sure that the tone was empathetic to the extremes of emotion that many Jews and not only Jews that many people are experiencing now.

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What Does Being Jewish Mean? PW Talks to Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman - Publishers Weekly

Indiana Jew-hatred bill heads to governor without IHRA examples – JNS.org

Posted By on March 13, 2024

(March 8, 2024 / JNS)

The Indiana state House voted unanimously on Friday to approve an amended antisemitism bill, which includes the text of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)s working definition of antisemitism but not its accompanying 11 examples.

House Bill 1002, which now heads to Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, originally had the IHRA contemporary examples, but the state Senate removed them.

Our Jewish students need to feel safe and welcome in our schools, and our goal with House Enrolled Act 1002 is to support Jewish communities by targeting antisemitism in K-12 classrooms and on college campuses, Chris Jeter, a Republican Indiana state representative, told JNS.

Im thankful we included the reference to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which is a critical piece of this legislation and got it through the finish line, Jeter added.

Aaron Freeman, a state senator who sponsored the bill, said after the Senate voted on Tuesday that he was frankly disappointed that its not everything that I would want this bill to be, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

Politics is about whats possible. And this is what is possible. Its a very strong definition of antisemitism, he added.

Mike Speedy, an Indiana state representative, wrote on Wednesday, I was proud to co-author HB 1002 to support and protect Jewish students in Indiana.

Without the reference to IHRA which was removed in the Senate, the bill is useless and ineffective, he added. He urged the Indiana General Assembly to reinsert IHRA and combat antisemitism.

On Friday, Speedy, a Republican, wrote: I am thankful that the IGA has agreed that antisemitism has no place in Indiana, and the IHRA reference and definition was incorporated into the final version. I am proud of my coauthorship and vote to protect Jewish students.

Sacha Roytman, CEO of the Combat Antisemitism Movement, stated prior to the bills passage in the House that the IHRA definition, which is broadly supported by the Jewish community in Indiana and worldwide, is necessary to clearly identify antisemitic incidents. (A spokeswoman told JNS that Roytman meant to refer to the 11 working examples as well.)

Without it, authorities and schools lack the tools needed to monitor and effectively combat the rising antisemitism on campuses, he added.

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