More than 100 LGBTQ rabbis, rabbinical students and cantors signed an open letter demanding that Hillel International and Ohio State University Hillel re-admit B’nai Keshet, a Jewish LGBTQ student group expelled in February from OSU Hillel because of its participation in a fundraiser co-sponsored by the OSU chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Several Bay Area clergy were among the signatories.
In February, Hillel International expelled B’nai Keshet at OSU because the group co-sponsored an LGBTQ refugee fundraiser also co-sponsored by JVP. JVP is a leftist organization that opposes Israeli occupation in Palestinian territories, supports BDS and is neutral on the question of the existence of a Jewish state. According to Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership for campus Israel activities, JVP is an unacceptable partner for affiliated Jewish organizations like B’nai Keshet, hence the ban.
Addressed to Hillel International president Eric Fingerhut, the letter from the Jewish clergy commended Hillel for past LGBTQ outreach, while criticizing B’nai Keshet’s expulsion, which, according to the letter, resulted in Hillel withdrawing “funding, staff advising, access to the Hillel building and student list-serve and subsidized kosher food.” The letter called on Hillel International to end its standards of partnership.
Among the signers were Rabbis Burt Jacobson, Dev Noily and David Cooper of Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont; Rabbi Jeremy Sher of Oakland; Rabbi Judith Seid of Pleasanton; Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb of Berkeley; Rabbi Susan Averbach of San Francisco; and rabbinical student Cat Zavis of Berkeley.
Signatories support the Open Hillel movement made up of Jewish students and community members who seek more open discourse about Israel-related matters in Jewish communities on campus. Critics claim Open Hillel policies would open the door to unacceptably anti-Israel views being granted a platform in local Hillels.
This is a very intellectually dishonest article.
I looked up the innocuous-sounding “Jewish Voice for Peace” online and quickly learned that it is a radical, fringe, far-left, anti-Zionist organization committed to Israel’s destruction under the so-called “right of return” which would Arabize Israel and obliterate the Zionist entity by turning Israel into a Muslim-majority country.
It is such a vile organization that it is on the ADL’s top-ten list of anti-Israel organizations. Quite an honor!!!
Jewish Voice for Peace is neither Jewish nor for peace. It is a hate group that supports and abets violence against Jews and Israelis. Kapos had more honor and integrity than Rebecca Vilkomerson and her minion JINOs of JVP.
Agreed. It is a grotesquely named organization as an article originally posted in the Time of Israel (which I have posted the link to below) points out.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/grotesquely-named-jewish-voices-for-peace-lies-to-try-and-damage-u-s-israel-relations/
Read about the anti-semitism of Jewish Voice for peace here: https://medium.com/@acandidworld/the-antisemitism-of-the-so-called-jewish-voice-for-peace-12e42f595cbf.
He writes “The time has come to state facts: Jewish Voice for Peace is not a “fringe” Jewish organization. JVP is not merely “anti-Zionist.” JVP is the vanguard of a movement of far-left antisemitism. “