I post Jewish things. Sometimes other things. Like sports. But mostly Jewish things. Senior Jewish Educator for @JudaismUnbound /The UnYeshiva. he/him
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Claudia Sheinbaum is the first woman, and first Jewish, president of Mexico. She was sworn in yesterday. There are over 90 articles that come up on Google News discussing it. 0 are in a Jewish publication.
I get that it's Rosh Hashanah tonight, but am also just really confused.
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Incredible stuff. Kicking a Jewish student group off campus in order to “protect Jewish students.” At a certain point, just own that you only mean “Jewish students who are Zionists” and that every day you’re consciously trying to make non-Zionist Jews’ college experiences worse.
Finally. Thank you, @Columbia, for enforcing your policies & acting in a way consistent with your legal & moral obligations to protect Jewish students. JVP & SJP's violation of university protocol, continued use of threatening rhetoric & tactics of intimidation have no place on campus. news.columbia.edu/news/state…
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Sending love as Passover approaches, to Jewish college students. In particular, a shout to those whose Jewish practices are being invisibilized and rendered anti-Jewish. Your pro-Palestine activism is not a threat to "Jewish students." It is an extension of your Judaism.
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I'm thrilled Wikipedia now understands that the ADL is unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, but honestly they shoulda realized that 30 years ago when the ADL got Grandpa Boris and Grandma Minka pulled from Rugrats for being "antisemitic caricatures."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rugr…
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Former Hillel International board member here (student representative, 2011-13). For many years, folks (me included) tried to change it from within, to be a politically pluralistic space for Jewish students across Zionism and Anti-Zionism (through Open Hillel most prominently).
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I am aware that Sheinbaum has taken stances in support of Palestinian rights. Jewish publications write pieces about Jewish, pro-Palestine politicians regularly. I do happen to really like Sheinbaum, but any-article-in-a-Jewish-publication-at-all is not the same as "endorsement."
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Sometimes the Greek/English versions of Hebrew names are straightforward. Other times, you -- a Jewish educator who has a specific interest in interfaith relationships in the bible -- fail to notice, until you're 31 years old, that the store "Sephora" is named after Moses's wife.
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This is the first Jewish woman to be head of state in North America, ever. I don't know what "global Jewish peoplehood" means when as a collective we barely care about this at all.
This is a little bit about Zionism/Non-Zionism/Anti-Zionism but also about so much more honestly.
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Sukkot of 2024/5785 should be remembered as a pivotal moment in the history of American Judaism. It was characterized by university administrations throughout the United States, at public and private universities, destroying sukkahs created by Jewish college students.
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Folks are responding, now, with “how dare you boycott Hillel. It’s antisemitic to do so.” Nope! Can’t have it both ways. Either “go start your own Jewish org, leave us alone” is the move or “we are Jewish life. Boycotting us is boycotting Jewish life entirely.” Can’t be both.
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A person on CNN uttered the clause “compared to other recent synagogue attacks in the past few years” and the fact that that clause is a real thing just kinda breaks me.
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Now, students have started their own Jewish groups. They, and non-Jewish students as well, are naming that Hillel is actively committed to not being a space for all Jewish students across ideologies. Which Hillel has actively affirmed is true (not a space for non/anti-Zionists).
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It’s not antisemitic to say “Hillel is not and should not be the only instantiation of Jewish life on campus.” Hillel itself has said this! I was trained as a student leader and board member to say this. Its vision is to support Jewish life, not to be the only version of it.
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At every turn, people criticized our work to change Hillel with “Hillel is a Zionist project. If you want a different kind of Jewish org, stop asking us to change! Start up your own Jewish space.”
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I am a rabbi and this is important: If the first day of the Jewish year is Rosh Hashanah (head of the year), then the last day of the year should be Tuchus Hashanah (butt/caboose of the year).
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🧵A reminder that claims of "The vast majority of American Jews are Zionists"...are completely baseless. A thread with numbers from the 2 most recent local Jewish population studies that have asked about Zionist self-identification. Most studies haven't asked, but these 2 have:
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But the impossible and unsustainable contradiction they’ve tried to hold — of “we are here for all Jewish students” with “Non-Zionist Jewish students, check your politics at the door” — is catching up.
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The unbelievable chutzpah to get two of the most lovable Jewish characters in the history of television pulled off television in the name of "fighting antisemitism." Please include this on lineages of historic ADL wrong-takes, yall.
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A thing's bothering me, around discourse about the NYT Ultra-Orthodoxy piece. The problem isn't "They have no marketable skills" -- a failure to churn out contributors to capitalism. The problem's that they're deprived basic building blocks for engaging the world as human beings.
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Or new forms of Jewish life (already arising on tons of campuses) will be created by Jewish anti-Zionists. I don’t have the power to say “you can’t ban anti/non-Zionism” but…I can say “If you do, and people call to withhold support as a result, the reason isn’t antisemitism.’”
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Both because it fully clarifies this is not about eliminating Jewish campus life, for those who want to cry foul, and because the growth of non-Zionist Jewish student groups is wonderful for both the present/future of Judaism and the present/future of pro-Palestine activism!
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I do call for folks who are publicly criticizing Hillel to accompany that with a proactive call for other forms of Jewish student life!
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I'm ready to shift the Jewish Halloween debate from "is it okay for Jews to observe Halloween" to "Which is the best Jewish demon"
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Seriously, you can think Jewish students standing for ceasefire is a bad thing (though I don’t)! Just say clearly that you think thousands of Jewish activists on campus are living their Judaism incorrectly, and your daily work is to help different Jews on campus who you prefer.
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I loved and continue to love Hillel’s work, for what it meant to my life and thousands of others. Absolutely essential. But this is an inflection point. Either they’ll find a way to prioritize all students, and eliminate their standards of partnership on Israel…
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This is the ADL, folks. Can we please stop pretending they meaningfully speak for any collective-Jewish anything, and build up alternatives?
Absolutely wild, but not very surprising, that there is no mention of racism, Islamophobia...anything other than antisemitism.
We congratulate President Donald J. Trump, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and all the candidates who won last night. We look forward to working with the incoming Administration, Congress and all elected officials in pursuit of our 111-year-old mission — to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all.
We remain steadfastly committed to that timeless mission as we fight the torrent of antisemitism sweeping our society along with all forms of hate and extremism — offline and online, on campuses and in schools, in the US and around the world.
adl.org/resources/press-rele…
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For a month, the people attending today's March for Israel have argued (falsely) that JVP and IfNotNow's members are "fake Jews" -- that they're just providing cover for non-Jewish antisemites. Then they invited notorious Evangelical antisemite John Hagee to speak at their rally.
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I keep meeting progressive Jewish college students (and recent alums) who are feeling called to rabbinical school (or other forms of Jewish leadership). This includes many who are participating in or supporting campus encampments around the country. It’s helping to give me hope.
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In case you were wondering, yes, I'm probably going to refer to the store as "Tzipi" from here on out.
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It's cool to see specifically somebody who is simultaneously:
- proudly Jewish, and
- treated by mainstream Jewish orgs as not really "one of us" (a direct quote from a recent article in a Jewish publication)
...be elected president of Mexico. Congrats Claudia Sheinbaum!
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Purim 2022 is on St. Patrick's Day. I feel like everybody needs to start prepping their bodies now.
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A reminder, as Jewish institutions and leaders celebrate the Jewishness of Kamala Harris's spouse, that a huge percentage of synagogues, today, wouldn't allow them to be married in their building. That entire mainstream movements of rabbis would refuse to officiate their wedding.
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For context: I led services this high holidays on a college campus, and was at a pro-Palestine action for ceasefire…literally being led to large degree by the students who chanted Torah and gave divrei torah at those services I guest-led.
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I’m trying to imagine the response if someone was told they needed to remove a shirt saying “American Jews Stand With Israel” by an airline, and if not, be arrested.
I think American Jews of all stripes would be (rightly) outraged. Can we be similarly outraged about this?
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I still am trying to wrap my head around the recklessness of saying that opposition to Josh Shapiro as VP pick boils down to antisemitism. It’s genuinely abysmal, and dangerous, because it minimizes actual antisemitism.
Whether he’s picked or not, lots of damage has been done.
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We are supposed to be singing and dancing, celebrating crossing the sea of reeds. We are watching CNN to monitor a hostage situation instead.
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The ADL just told me to tell you that "browbeat" is antisemitic because it implies that Jews have prominent eyebrows.
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Since the time for this debate is nearing:
The right way to spell Hanukkah is to change the spelling of Channuka each time that you mention Xanukah. Khannike is a delightful holiday (get it?) when one eats fried foods and remembers miracles. Mark your calendar, Janice is coming!
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If I were the ADL, famously trying to convince Wikipedia that I'm not terrible at defining what is and is not antisemitism, I wouldn't...immediately push for a mask ban, on the basis that wearing a mask is antisemitic?
But I am not the ADL.
(Press release in next tweet)
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Hundreds of Jewish summer camps have sung
“Some Jews wear hats, and some Jews wear sombreros, & some wear keffiyehs to keep out the sun”
…for decades as a part of the very-weird but not-nazi song “Wherever you go there’s always someone Jewish.” By noted non-nazi Larry Milder.
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Purim Katan is a holiday. It means "itty-bitty Purim." Very few people celebrate it. Settlers of Catan is a game. Many people play it. We should:
- Transliterate the holiday as Purim Catan.
- Say confidently 'The tradition is to play Settlers of Catan.'
Boom Jewish continuity.
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To further clarify, my closing tweets in the thread were basically a call for boycotted to add a demand of university administrators that they invest actively in emerging non-Hillel forms of Jewish life started by non-Zionist Jewish students.
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Portland, OR (2022-23, scholarworks.brandeis.edu/es…)
- 26% self-identify as Zionist
- 52% do not identify as Zionist
- 22% are unsure or prefer not to say
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From coast to coast, at universities ranging from UC Berkeley, to Northwestern, to UCLA, to Rutgers, to NYU, to the University of Washington (and more), universities actively destroyed Sukkahs built by Jewish students in commemoration of a ritual with over 2,500 years of history.
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What if we all go to Sephoras in various places, set up a joint Zoom, and do a worldwide Torah study/beauty session where we look at some Tzipporah/Sephora related texts?
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Northeast Pennsylvania (2024, scholarworks.brandeis.edu/es…)
- 39% explicitly identify as Zionist
- 35% explicitly do not identify as Zionist
- 27% are unsure or prefer not to say
(please save the THIS ADDS UP TO 101% stuff, that's how rounded responses work sometimes)
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The universities often asserted one of two things (or both). First, that these sukkahs are not manifestations of religious practice, but political statements in solidarity with Gaza. So destroying them is not about infringing on religious practice. This dichotomy is false.
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Lots of religious practices are explicitly political! Indeed, the holiday of Sukkot is a commemoration of a group who had recently led a successful slave revolt in Egypt (slave revolts are fairly "political"), who proceeded to wander, homeless, for 40 years in a desert.
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People pulling the same tried and not-true talking points about new forms of campus Jewish life.
DropHillel is a Jewish project, invested in building Jewish life on campus. Unless you think every synagogue break-off in history is antisemitic, then you shouldn’t think this is.
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Universities insisted that the religious freedom of Jewish students -- to follow the ancient words of Leviticus 23:42-44 (dwelling in a Sukkah for 7 days, to mark Sukkot) -- need not be respected. Jews can be on campus, but they must check their religious practice at the door.
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Antisemitism on campus. Directly harming Jews, and hindering their ability to observe a central Jewish holiday. Call it what it is! If your approach to antisemitism is that it can’t exist when the targets are pro-Palestine Jews, stop saying you oppose antisemitism. You don’t.
I’m gathered right now with 50+
Jewish Berkeleyans for our Seder at the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Sproul Plaza. As we prayed, sang, and ate, a woman shoved a camera in our faces. She refused to leave when asked and continued yelling and disrupting our holy religious ceremony.
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In 2020, the most important national population study of American Jews erased the existence of all nonbinary people.
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So is the mitzvah here that Chabad helped this person wrap tefillin, or is it that the Jews at this event helped Chabad attend this pro-Palestine action? Cue up the "why not both" meme?
Anyway, we've reached the Chabad-sees-that-lots-of-Jews-are-at-the-ceasefire-protests stage.
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Oh they’re back at it. This garners news every once in a while. Unfortunately common, for a whole bunch of Jewish federations (maybe most but I can’t prove that):
jewishcurrents.org/how-the-s…
forward.com/news/433485/new-…
jweekly.com/2016/02/05/opini…
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Please check in with your Jewish friends, wherever they are. It is very hard to feel unsure if anybody who isn’t themselves Jewish cares, when synagogue violence happens.
Jews are a trans-geographic community. It feels personal even if the violence is geographically far away.
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Students today -- following longstanding Jewish traditions of tying Sukkot to groups facing contemporary oppression and homelessness (Palestinians in this case, 2 million of whom have been forced from their homes) -- are engaged in the religious practice of Judaism as they do so.
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Jewish kippah/yarmulke-wearer here! Just here to express the immense gratitude I have to @IlhanMN, for pretty much everything she does in the world, but also for being willing, more than maybe any other American human being, to publicly fight for my right to wear kippot proudly.
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The insta post will be Sephora's logo but a T cutely inserted before the O, and an H after the a, so it's SephTorah.
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I guess...thanks Josh Shapiro for the chance to talk about the language of "faith" and how Jews do and don't relate to it?
I'm a religious Jew. My daily, weekly, monthly, yearly rhythm is tied to Judaism. I have deeply held theological views. I never talk about "my faith."
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🧵It is not reasonable, at all, for "peace bloc" orgs to express surprise that right-wing antisemites like John Hagee were invited to speak at this rally.
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Whatever you think about Hillel, (there are a lot of things to think about Hillel!), please stop saying "it's the only place to get Kosher food on campus."
Protesting Hillel is many things in many directions. What it isn't is "saying Kosher-keeping students should starve."
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Second, universities implicitly asserted that policies around the use of campus space are inalterable, to the degree that they cannot contain an exemption for the practice of religious rituals with thousands of years of history. This is unacceptable.
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It is not the place of universities to determine what is and is not an authentic manifestation of Jewish religious practice, as filtered through Bible, through Talmud, and through more recent Jewish texts. And yet universities have asserted that that's precisely their role.
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Because the antisemitism being channeled here was antisemitism toward Jewish practices in solidarity with Palestinians, it seems that they don't believe the antisemitism is actually a problem. I disagree. I hope all who have observed these events (Jewish and not) disagree!
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On Mondays we wear rainbow kippot. And stand against perpetual occupation. #EmbassyofFreedom
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Isaac Herzog called Jews in interfaith relationships a "plague."
If you're an American-Jewish org that claims to care about the empowerment of interfaith families, posting your unabashed excitement at his election as president of Israel, with no caveats, is maybe not the move?
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For the future of Judaism, for the future of solidarity work with Palestinians, and for the future of the free exercise of religion in the United States, I hope we'll all work to ensure that commemoration of Jewish holidays will not again be prevented -- in 2025/5786 or beyond.
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Hillel is not a university org, it’s an outside org — in most settings where it has a large campus presence. Saying “cut ties” is not the same as “make students unable to go.” Students go to Chabad too in many places, with way fewer concrete ties to universities than hillel!
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If you see Anti-Zionist Jews as something other than the threatened group, "Jewish students," that you're worried about -- turns out you're not worried about Jewish students! You're worried about the group "Jewish students roughly aligned with my politics."
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You can go with "People who say 'I am not X' *are* actually X -- I know them better than they know themselves"....but I don't think you're going to win the argument. Lots of American anti-zionists believe in a future where Jews would live in safety in the land of Israel!
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Every time we pose "Jewish students" on the one hand and "pro-Palestine protesters" on the other, we perpetuate a false dichotomy. Nationally, for years, Jews have not only been present as participants -- but over-represented -- in Palestine solidarity work.
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For decades, students have dwelt in sukkahs (including sleeping in Sukkahs) on campuses around the country, without impediment. I myself was one such student, on a campus that this year took disciplinary action against students for doing the same.
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There are of course other ways of marking Sukkot, not connected to the Palestinians in any respect. If universities destroyed Sukkahs commemorating Sukkot in a different way, I would hope all Jews -- and all people -- would stand up and say that's antisemitic as well!
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There is a conscious framing that operates in discussions about college campuses where "Jewish students" is conflated with "Jewish students who are Zionists," while all Jews who are not Zionists are framed as people who happen to be Jewish, who act in solidarity with non-Jews.
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It should be a no-brainer, that all Jewish institutions stand up in the face of those who would prevent the observance of Sukkot. But it isn't. Many Jewish organizations, and Jewish communal leaders, have expressed relative neutrality or even joy at the Sukkah destructions.
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Non/Anti-Zionists loving Passover is not confusing! A story of a mixed multitude journeying from oppression to freedom, led by an Egyptian-raised Israelite named Moses, who’s married to a Midianite. Very resonant for Jews striving for equality across ethno-religious background!
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Just to really be clear here: JewBelong writing this in a world where barely a few months ago three Palestinians were shot in Vermont for doing nothing but wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic is directly, severely dangerous in addition to being morally contemptible.
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This is a devastating moment. it’s worth pausing to consider the potential future in which a common answer to “What made you want to become a rabbi” may be “Experiencing deep spiritual community with Palestinians, Jews, and others, via campus organizing in the 2020s.”
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In a context of growing American antisemitism in many different respects, it is unbelievably irresponsible to presume that the destruction of Jewish ritual-structures by public and private universities won't lead to further antisemitic action against other Jewish practices.
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Over 30 Rhode Islanders putting their bodies on the line, risking arrest, because #NeverAgainIsNow.
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Whenever somebody talks about the safety of "Jewish students" on campus -- ask them which students they are referring to. Do they mean the safety of Jewish students who have had charges pressed against them by their universities for participation in pro-Palestine protests?
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I'm not here to say nobody can make that argument. But make it precisely.
Jews on campus are Zionist, and Anti-Zionist, and I-don't-wanna-talk-about-Zionism, and everything in-between.
If "Jewish students" are your framed concern, you have to actually care about all of them.
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Them: It's "Adam and Eve" not "Adam and Steve"
Us: It's Mo-SHE-ach not Mo-HE-ach. Messiah's gonna be a GIRL.
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I could not find other studies on this page that include questions about Zionist self-identification, but it's possible I missed them. Please add if I did! The page includes recent local Jewish population studies conducted by Brandeis's Cohen Center: brandeis.edu/cmjs/community-…
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I just looked ahead at the calendar. The 1st day of Sukkot is Indigenous Peoples' Day, making 2022 the year that:
- Tu Bish'vat was MLK Day
- Purim was St. Patrick's Day
- The Biblical New Year was April Fools' Day
- The 1st day of Sukkot is Indigenous Peoples' Day
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"All I want for Christmas is you."
"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."
Contradiction? This Talmud page says no. (Red-box-part I wrote, outside-commentaries on it are credited to their authors)
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"Do you know the muffin man, who lives on Drury Lane?"
In this essay on the phenomenon known as "Jewish geography," I will
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Do they mean the safety of Jewish students holding Shabbat observances with Muslim, Christian, and Atheist fellow activists? Not usually. Often it's one set of Jews named as "threat" and another being deemed "threatened" -- with that latter group being "Zionist Jews on campus."
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Abortion is religious freedom. Thrilled to end the thing where Conservative-Christian-specific beliefs are cloaked in the vague, imperialistic language of “faith-based.” Conservative Christians are not the arbiters of universal religion or morality, nope.
washingtonpost.com/religion/…
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I am a Rhode Islander, I am a rabbi, and I am absolutely outraged that Miguel Sanchez was just fired by my governor. Calling out the humanity of all people, Palestinians included, should not be a fireable offense. Embarrassed that my governor disagrees.
On Friday, I was fired by Governor McKee for my public position on the atrocities occurring in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, I have used my voice as an elected official to condemn all violence against any innocent civilians.
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The contrast between Brad Lander’s and Josh Shapiro’s college-aged writings is really something.
From the archives: In 1990, Brad Lander, then in his early 20s, wrote a furious letter to the St. Louis Jewish Light, his hometown paper, requesting the cancellation of his subscription over what he called the “rabid and racist anti-Arab sentiments expressed” in its pages.
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Abe Foxman thought that Rugrats Passover resembled Nazi propaganda, and that airing it would endanger Jews in similar ways. No, this is not a reasonable thing to think. Yes, it was a thing the ADL voiced publicly, in line with their general misjudgements about antisemitism since.
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Non and Anti-Zionist organizing on campus is no more a "threat to Jewish students" than Zionist organizing is. All of these constituencies contain Jews and non-Jews. All of them contain Jews who conceptualize their ideologies as an extension of their Jewishness and Judaism.
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The point of liberal orgs' involvement was always to demonstrate "from left to right" support for ongoing Israeli military action. It was never to listen to their input, or shape speaker lists to fit their interests. That's why so many of us said "Don't go! You're being used!"
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