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Anita Silverman Hirsch Z"l

Nefarious Behaviour of One University President

Recently I came across this article regarding the nefarious behaviour of one University President. I am reminded of Prof. Manfred Gerstenfeld's suggestion when he spoke at CIJR "Taking back the Campus", that universities should not only be judged on their excellence they should also be judged according to their evil behaviours.  And University presidents, whether Jews or non-Jews, also need to be judged according to their upholding the values for which this country stands.



Jewish University Presidents Who Abandon Jews
By Stella Paul

Since we live in a craven age, let's salute our few heroes.  Meet Jessica Felber, a 21-year-old Lioness of Judah, who's suing the University of California for failing to protect her civil rights. 

Felber is a student activist at Berkeley who simply asserts her right to stand on campus and hold a sign saying, "Israel Wants Peace," without subsequently needing urgent medical attention.  What Jew can count on that right on a UC campus these days?
In March 2010, Felber was violently assaulted by Husam Zakharia, the leader of Students for Justice in Palestine, as she peacefully held her sign at a pro-Israel event.  UC authorities "were fully aware that Zakharia, the SJP and similar student groups had been involved in other incidents on campus to incite violence against and intimidate Jewish and other students," says her renowned lawyer, Neal Sher.  Nevertheless, "[d]efendants took no reasonable steps to protect Ms. Felber and others."
Felber names UC President Mark Yudof in her lawsuit and therein lies a tale.  Yudof took office in 2008 amidst a blaze of schmaltzy headlines like, "New University  President Keeps Kosher, Loves Israel."  Yudof boasted about his wife, Judy, the first woman to serve as international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and proclaimed, "I am a very strong advocate of Israel."
Well, if you say so, sir.  If by "very strong advocate of Israel," you mean using your powers as UC President to ignore 63 faculty members who wrote you, "We, faculty at the University of California-Irvine, are deeply disturbed about activities on campus that foment hatred against Jews and Israelis... Some community members, students, and faculty indeed feel intimidated, and at times even unsafe."
Or maybe your "strong advocacy" includes empowering lunatic anti-Semitic professors that ride herd over whole departments, corrupt academic integrity, and punish students who disagree with their "Israel is a Nazi state" harangues.
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, has filed suit against UC, claiming that the Santa Cruz campus constitutes a hostile environment for Jews.  Benjamin maintains that university-sponsored, faculty-generated events have "crossed the line from anti-Israel to anti-Semitic."  Federal authorities are now investigating whether Santa Cruz's treatment of Jews violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
This is "strong advocacy," Mr. Yudof?  What does complete abdication of responsibility look like?
Here's the unsettling question that now bedevils us: how did a self-proclaimed committed Jew and lover of Israel find himself at the business end of two lawsuits accusing him of anti-Semitism?
Just lucky, I guess.
The son of an electrician, Yudof is a recognizable type: the hardworking, self-made man whose capabilities are eventually rewarded with stewardship of a complex organization.
Yudof wafted upwards through the bureaucratic mazes of Texas and Minnesota, always playing the university man par excellence.  Was this institutional creature ever going to expend his personal political capital to protect his unpopular fellow Jews?  Evidently, only with meaningless, abstract platitudes.
Thus, Yudof acts all cuddly at Hadassah conventions, assuring the worried ladies of his Jewish bona fides.  He speaks at synagogues, using his credentials as a legal scholar to sprinkle the pixie dust of "free speech" over every incident of anti-Semitic thuggery, thereby pretending that his hands are tied.
Most shamefully, he writes large checks to and bestows gushing awards upon the Olive Tree Initiative, a Jewish-funded "constructive dialogue" group that shleps Jewish UC students to Israel.  Once in the Holy Land, these well-meaning young Jews are hectored by anti-Israel propagandists, and, for the coup de grâce of chutzpah, escorted to meet with Hamas terrorists newly sprung from Israeli prison.  Naturally, the students are sworn to secrecy and instructed how to hide their Hamas pow-wow from authorities.  Bonus outrage: the meetings take place on Rosh HaShonah!
A college president's main job is raking in the bucks, and Yudof has probably calculated his money tree's future is planted in the Middle East.  This week, the budget of UC took massive hits; those five million dollars the Saudis gave to the Center for Middle East Studies at Berkeley must surely come in handy now.  True, the Saudi money goes to credentializing anti-Semitic fantasias; but why quibble with cash?  As for Jewish donors, Yudof may confidently bet that they'll keep right on giving, no matter how many stink bombs are hurled their way.  They value education too much to stop.
When Harvard President Larry Summers muttered some politically incorrect thoughts, the faculty promptly agreed he should be shot, hanged, skinned alive, and banned from the faculty lounge.  More or less.  You can be sure Mark Yudof was watching.  Pro-Israel Jews are now the most demonized group by UC's faculty.  Mark Yudof will stand up for them about the time Ahmadinijad gets a bar mitzvah.
As for the Chabad rabbi at UC Irvine, whose home was just vandalized, or the twelve Jewish organizations that wrote Yudof in alarm at campus anti-Semitism, or the 700 Jewish students who signed a petition protesting their constant assault -- well, Mark Yudof has a message for you: I'll see you in synagogue, but after that, you're on your own.'

Dude Where is My Flotilla?

Over the past few days, the activist leftist circle in Canada has been buzzing with opinions over the Second Gaza Flotilla. A few boats, have tried to leave Greece to challenge the Israeli blockade and deliver, what they initially called "humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people." However, just yesterday, a Canadian ship was intercepted by the Greek coast guards and turned back to harbour. Some activists on board the flotilla say, the purpose of the flotilla has now transformed from delivering aid to showing solidarity with the Palestinian people. It is symbolic.

One may ask, if the justification for the flotilla is not to provide aid to the people of Gaza then where exactly does the loyalty of the activists lie? Is their loyalty to a humanitarian cause or is it loyalty to only one particular conflict? Are they concerned with showing solidarity or achieving humanitarian goals, addressing poverty, famine, and oppression?

I realize, this is a bold statement to make, one which is likely to recieve criticism from the left-leaning activists involved with the cause, but consider this: The BBC reports today, in its daily news, "Millions of people in the Horn of Africa are facing severe shortages of food as the worst drought in the region for six decades withers crops and kills livestock." East Africa is in a situation of a humanitarian crisis; 35-40% of children under five are malnourished and millions of families have been exposed to the risk of becoming refugees just to be able to survive and they may not be so lucky.

If the idea behind the flotilla was simply to deliver aid in order to provide relief to the people of Gaza from what these activists call a looming "humanitarian crisis", then why not steer the boat to the Horn of Africa where there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis to which the world has generally turned its back. Are people in Africa any less human than those in the middle east? Are we going to just wait and see millions of people perish from the face of this planet, like we have done in the past, because we wanted our efforts to be "symbolic" and not meaningful or impactful in any way?

And, even if the idea behind the flotilla was simply to show solidarity with the people in Gaza, one may wonder why no one on the left is showing solidarity with the people of Somalia and East Africa. What would these activists say to a Somali kid who has every reason to turn to them and ask, "Dude, where is my flotilla?"