“Nine different law student groups at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, have begun this new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism”

JEWISH JOURNAL
Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones
Aaron Bandler
September 28, 2022

If it wasn’t so frightening, one might be able to recognize the irony in the sight of campus progressives trying so hard to signal progressive virtue that they fall victim to a deeper moral shame. Nine different law student groups at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, my own alma mater, have begun this new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism. And these are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. READ MORE

WASHINGTON EXAMINER The new loyalty oath imposed on Jews 32 Jewish and non-Jewish students and young alumni, academics, communal and advocacy group figures, governmental leaders, activists, and creatives contributed to this article. Taken together, what follows is a portrait of profound societal changes.

JEWISH JOURNAL Jewish Civil Rights Brooke Goldstein, founder of End Jew Hatred is fighting Jew hatred with a civil rights movement that seeks justice for Jews…Goldstein explained to the Journal, fighting Jew hatred is “a civil rights issue which should be combatted through a civil rights movement for Jews” in the same tradition as other great justice movements.

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Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” is a “brilliant depiction of a Viennese family lost to the Holocaust and a personal reckoning for an author trying to live without links to the past”

JNS
Mourning a failed escape from history for assimilated Jews
Jonathan S Tobin
October 3, 2022

…“Leopoldstadt,” which premiered in London in 2020 before its initial run was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic, finally had its long-postponed Broadway opening this week in a limited engagement at the Longacre Theater that is scheduled to end in January. Any play with the kind of buzz that preceded this one, marking it as the major event of the new season before it even began, might be bound to disappoint. But “Leopoldstadt” does not. It’s two hours and ten minutes without an intermission of drama, leading inevitably to tragedy, maintains Stoppard’s reputation as an author of dialogue that is destined for collections of brilliant quotes. More importantly, though not without its flaws, the play also adds a late-career triumph to Stoppard’s resume that will be looked upon as a not insignificant contribution to the literature of the Holocaust. READ MORE

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Rashida Tlaib: Antisemite and “Progressive” Democrat

NY POST
Tlaib’s anti-Israel slander shows just how far Democrats have strayed
Editorial Board
September 22, 2022

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s latest anti-Israel slur highlights yet again just how far Democrats have strayed. Once upon a time, they wouldn’t have tolerated such outrageous attacks on the Jewish state. Today, Tlaib is just one of several Dems who repeatedly lie about Israel and push for its demise. “You cannot claim to hold progressives values yet back Israel’s apartheid government,” Tlaib said Tuesday. Yet the suggestion that Jerusalem is under an “apartheid government” is beyond outrageous: Israel welcomes people of all faiths and backgrounds. READ MORE

INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT ON TERRORISM Will Rashida Tlaib Get Away with Her Antisemitic Comments? “The outrageous progressive litmus test on Israel by @RashidaTlaib is nothing short of antisemitic,” wrote Florida U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. “Proud progressives do support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. Suggesting otherwise is shameful and dangerous. Divisive rhetoric does not lead to peace.”

DAILY SIGNAL AOC Tweet Shows She Doesn’t Know Meaning of Oppression. Iranian Women Could Tell Her AOC sees the recent wave of American pro-life legislation protecting unborn lives across the nation after the overturn of Roe v. Wade as being comparable to the oppression of women living under radical Islam. Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez would benefit from considering what the oppression being suffered by Iranian women really looks like.

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“Suspect uploaded footage of beheading to social media; unclear how the victim ended up in the West Bank, with some claiming he was kidnapped”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Gay Palestinian living under asylum in Israel murdered, beheaded in Hebron
Jack Mukand
October 6, 2022

A gay Palestinian man living under asylum in Israel was murdered and beheaded Wednesday in the West Bank city of Hebron. The unnamed suspect, who was arrested by Palestinian Authority police near the scene of the crime soon after committing it, recorded the act in a video that he uploaded to social media before his capture. The victim was 25-year-old Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, who according to reports on Ynet and Channel 12 had been living in Israel for the past two years as an asylum-seeker after authorities acknowledged his life would be in danger if he returned to Palestinian territory. READ MORE

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The Israeli-American alliance rests on traditional geopolitical considerations but also, as Walter Russell Mead’s new book shows, on much more than that

AMERICAN PURPOSE
As American as Apple Pie
Michael Mandelbaum
September 30, 2022

…By these standards, the model American ally is the state of Israel. It has supported American initiatives, and opposed the adversaries of the United States, since its founding in 1948. During that time, it has retained an impeccably democratic political system. As for burden-sharing, Israel’s defense budget as a percentage of the country’s overall output far exceeds what other American allies spend; Israel provides valuable intelligence to the American government; and Israel forswears the use of American troops for its defense, relying entirely on its own soldiers. READ MORE

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“Iranian feminism has stood the test of time; it hasn’t been corrupted. If only the same could be said for the West”

UNHERD
What Western feminists can learn from Iran
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
September 28, 2022

…This is part of the reason why Iran is so unique: not only are men standing publicly with women, but women must also be aware that they are under no threat from their husbands and male relatives, otherwise they would not dare put themselves on the front lines like this. Consider, for example, the beautiful, inspiring videos of women tossing their headscarves into bonfires before dancing joyously away, for all the world to see. If they thought their fathers or brothers were waiting back home to punish them, I doubt we would see such sights on this scale…As America’s feminist movement collapses under the weight of it its own divisiveness, I can’t help but find its Iranian counterpart far more inspiring: men and women standing together, speaking up for each other’s rights. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Iran fires at students as Mahsa Amini protests continue to escalate Security forces were seen in footage shared on social media firing directly at crowds of protesters, including students.

THE HILL Treasury sanctions 7 Iranian leaders over violence against protestors, internet shutdown The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned seven Iranian government and security leaders on Thursday for their suppression of women’s rights protests using violence and censorship.

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“Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom” 

REAL CLEAR POLITICS
Restoring Free Speech at Our Universities
Charles Lipson
September 30, 2022

Now that the autumn semester is well underway, it is worth asking whether students have a chance to participate in free and open debate. The short answer is “No, they don’t.” They don’t have a chance to explore unpopular ideas and controversial opinions. They are “protected” from ideas that might make them uncomfortable. What’s being stifled here is more than speech. It’s their education and, with it, their preparation to live in a tolerant society, where fellow citizens hold different views. As Hanna Holborn Gray, one of America’s finest university presidents, once observed: “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. READ MORE

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“The once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded – as civilization went headlong in reverse. We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis”

TOWN HALL
The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization
Victor Davis Hanson
October 2, 2022

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home – only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival. Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture. So, the great achievement of Western civilization – consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit – was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature. READ MORE

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EVENT StandWithUs Midwest Annual Gala Sunday November 6 !

The Campus Champions gala is StandWithUs‘ annual celebration of Israel in the Midwest, this year honoring Chicago businessman Ted Schwartz. The evening will include remarks from Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan and Noa Tishby, The State of Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and Delegitimization of Israel as well as a delicious dinner by renowned chef Carlos Resendiz. Sunday, November 6 at 5:30 PM at the Lincolnshire Marriott Resort.

To purchase tickets go to http://www.standwithus.com/campuschampions2022

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“Attempts to shoehorn European political leaders into a neat equation about fascists, authoritarians and democrats doesn’t advance Jewish interests or make sense”

JNS
Is Italy’s Giorgia Meloni a friend or a foe of the Jews?
Jonathan Tobin
September 28, 2022

The latest parliamentary elections in Italy have sent many in the chattering classes in both Europe and the United States heading for their smelling salts. The victory of Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy Party means that the right-wing bloc is likely to lead the next government. Since the Brothers of Italy traces its origins to supporters of Benito Mussolini’s Fascists and postwar successor groups, the assumption on the part of many, if not most, commentators is that her success is part of a general trend in which democracy is being threatened by a new generation of authoritarians. In this way, Meloni is lumped together with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and former U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as, in some versions of this thesis, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Italy’s Meloni portrays herself as strong supporter of Israel, rejects fascist past Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who is on track to become the country’s first far-right leader since Mussolini in World War II, has long tried to distance herself from her party’s fascist past and indicated she would be a strong supporter of Israel, even boasting of ties to the Likud party.

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