The Boston Globe reports on one local synagogue’s controversial plan to revitalize its Hebrew school: (more…)

With tensions still simmering over an Arabic-language charter school in Brooklyn — a fight that spawned a (heavily Jewish) campaign against it, the resignation of its principal days before the school was due to open amidst charges she sympathizes with terrorists, and at least two lawsuits – news has broken of a Hebrew-language charter school in the same borough of New York City.

Both the Forward and the Jewish Week have stories about the new school, backed my mega-philanthropist Michael Steinhardt and pushed by his daughter, Sara Berman, who is submitting an application for the school next week.

If adopted, it would become the second Hebrew-language charter school in the country. Ben Gamla in Hollywood, Fla. was the first, opening its doors this past fall. Like the Brooklyn Arabic school, and another Arabic school in Minnesota, Ben Gamla has had its troubles. Critics — including some Jews — have charged that it’s little more than a front for religious instruction and blurs the line between church and state.

But at least one commentator thinks the new school is protected under the Constitution. Check out Thomas Carroll’s take in today’s New York Post.

With all the hubbub in the Jewish world these days surrounding Israel’s 60th anniversary, it was perhaps inevitable that Israel’s critics would want their own commemoration. As JTA reported yesterday, this week has been branded “Nakba Week” at Columbia University, with a whole host of events planned around what Palestinians see as the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation.

Several campus groups are participating. Two that are not – surprise! – are Hillel and the Progressive Jewish Alliance, a Hillel subgroup. Apparently, Hillel and PJA declined to co-sponsor an April 14 event that had the word “Nakba” in its description. According to Columbia senior David Judd, who assailed both groups in a piece in the Columbia student newspaper, the Spectator, Hillel cannot acknowledge the Nakba because of its stated commitment to a Jewish democratic Israel.

He writes:

In the case of the April 14 event, I’m told this policy was cited against any Hillel association with the claim that Palestinians suffered a historical wrong in 1948. Whatever happened that year, it cannot be labeled a “catastrophe.” Harm done to Palestinians cannot, apparently, be acknowledged in this framework as an ethical offense. Where it cannot plausibly be denied nor justified, absolute silence on the subject must suffice.

This implication may seem a stretch from the formal wording of Hillel policy—and indeed, it is unlikely that, should Hillel or PJA have cosponsored, either would have suffered any direct sanction. But deriving an imperative from the Hillel formula for the exclusion of Palestinians from ethical consideration does not require too strained a reading.

A stretch indeed.

(more…)

The student papers at the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona both have articles about the Jewish fraternity ZBT making a comeback. Who’s their publicist?!

The University Daily Kansan:

A Jewish fraternity is going to join the 40 greek houses already at the University in the next few years.

Zeta Beta Tau, a fraternity based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is coming back to the University after being absent for around ten years. It closed its first house in the late 1990s because of a lack of general leadership in the chapter.

ZBT was invited to start a new chapter by the Interfraternity Council and the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life in September 2007.

Associate executive director Laurence Bolotin said the fraternity had begun to receive requests to start a new ZBT chapter on campus, so it has begun to reconnect with campus and alumni.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat:

After numerous bouts of failed leadership that led to Zeta Beta Tau’s removal from the Interfraternity Council and the arrest of the president and vice president in 2005, the fraternity’s future looked grim.

Now they’re getting a fresh start in 2008.

“We were there for many years and we’ve come in and out but now we’re starting again with a completely new group of guys and none of the old guys will have anything to do with it,” said Matthew Tobe, national director of Zeta Beta Tau. “There was poor leadership at the time and now we have a group of freshmen and sophomore men who want to start fresh.”

Tobe and his colleagues have spent time on campus recruiting students to become founding fathers of the new fraternity. They already have twelve and are hoping for about seven more, Tobe said.

Ben Harris reported earlier this week on Hillel’s upcoming conference and the related debate over how to deal with anti-Israel activities on campus. In a related exchange…

The ZOA’s president, Morton Klein, has posted an opinion piece criticizing the Harvard Hillel for hosting an exhibition of photographs and testimony by Israeli soldiers who served in the Palestinian territories:

If an exhibit about Babe Ruth’s baseball career showed only his 100 worst games, one would be led to believe – erroneously – that Ruth was an awful player. The same is true with Harvard Hillel’s exhibit, showcasing a fraction of Israelis’ conduct not remotely reflecting their typical behavior.

Indeed, the exhibit promotes an anti-Israel lie. Human rights activist Natan Sharansky praised “Israel’s willingness to endanger the lives of its own soldiers in order to save the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinian civilians.” Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz proclaimed, “No country in history ever complied with a higher standard of human rights.”

There is nothing about the Harvard Hillel exhibit that would bring Jewish students closer to their heritage or cultivate their love and advocacy for Israel – goals that Hillel says it is dedicated to achieving. The exhibit could cause students to disassociate from their heritage, and feel shame or disgust about Israel, which is unwarranted and disastrous for our Jewish future.

The president of Harvard Hillel issued an open letter in response:

I write to clarify our situation because your press release and letters of condemnation do not in any way reflect the reality of Harvard Hillel or the Harvard campus. In fact, what you have said and not said is confusing and damaging. For instance, much of your condemnation confuses International Hillel and Harvard Hillel. International Hillel is not responsible for programming at Harvard Hillel. Why do you attack them page after page? And why do your attributions of blame to them apply to us in this situation?

Truth from a skyscraper in New York City looks different than on the ground of a campus in Cambridge. Every campus and every Hillel has its own unique culture. …

Harvard Hillel neither sponsors nor supports “Breaking the Silence”. We have indeed provided a venue for the exhibit. We have provided space in response to the request of two important student groups. Both groups are explicitly Zionist, although each group has a different function and self-understanding. The Harvard Students for Israel, our Israel advocacy group, one of the largest in the country, requested after consulting with the Progressive Jewish Alliance, a sponsor of the exhibit, to move “Breaking the Silence” from a prominent location on campus into the Hillel building. Their concerns were serious. First, they felt that the exhibit needed to be housed where it could be thoroughly and responsibly contextualized – not open to an ongoing heavy flow of traffic with little written or oral explanation. Second, they wanted to ensure that the exhibit not function as a discrete free-standing program but be a component of a larger educational program that could provide alternative perspectives, including a critique of the exhibit. Third, they wanted to avoid ugly, divisive, public displays that, while a delight to the media and outsiders, would be destructive to the Harvard Jewish community and to the reputation of Israel.

The Harvard Crimson reports on the controversy stirred up by a multi-media exhibition at the Harvard Hillel featuring testimonials from Israeli soldiers about their time in Gaza and the West Bank:

“Breaking the Silence” — a traveling exhibit of over 100 photographs and videos testimonials curated by former Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers — drew a crowd of nearly 200 on its opening night on March 1. Critics have said the exhibit portrays only the extremes of military life — such as a picture of an IDF soldier smiling in front of several corpses — and offers little context.

“By hosting this exhibit, Harvard Hillel only promotes enmity and hatred towards Israel and gives legitimacy to these sentiments by stamping its approval on the biased, distorted collage of pictures,” said [ZOA's Mort Klein].

But Franklin M. Fisher — an MIT economics professor and chair of Americans for Peace Now, which advocates for peace in the Middle East and sponsors “Breaking the Silence” — said he disagreed with Klein’s view. Fisher said the exhibit does not constitute criticism of Israel, adding that “not all criticism of Israel is hostile.”