Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Pro-Israel Student Wins California Regents Board Election After Fierce Debate

(Reuters) — A student with strong ties to Israel was appointed to the governing council of the University of California Wednesday amid debate similar to that which arose last year after the Board of Regents chose a Muslim student active in Palestinian causes.

Abrahem “Avi” Oved, a 21-year-old economics major at UCLA who will replace Sadia Saifuddin, a UC Berkeley student who is the board’s first Muslim student member as student regent, said he would work with all students and represent them on the board.

“I want to work with students on the ground, and that should be the focus of this position – empowering students and giving them the resources they need to be heard,” said Oved, whose parents are from Israel.

Oved drew controversy in the 10-campus UC system when a student newspaper published emails that appeared to connect him to a passionately pro-Israel activist whose Twitter posts have included pictures he said were of “Muslim thugs” at a Los Angeles demonstration.

“The concern at this point is whether there is trust between Avi and students,” said Kareem Aref, President of the UC Student Association.

The emails appear to show that the activist, Adam Milstein, contributed funds for use by students running for campus government positions at UCLA who described themselves as pro-Israel.

“This obviously is a continuing effort to harass and intimidate students who are pro-Israel,” Milstein said Wednesday.

Saifuddin, a social welfare major at the prestigious University of California at Berkeley, was the only member of the board to oppose Oved’s appointment, saying she voted in solidarity with students who felt uncomfortable with his appointment.

Last year, when she was appointed, Jewish groups including the prominent Simon Wiesenthal Center strongly objected to her nomination, citing her involvement in a campaign to divest university funds from companies with business connections to the Israeli military.

They also objected to her sponsoring a student senate resolution that condemned a lecturer at the system’s Santa Cruz campus for what the resolution said was Islamophobic rhetoric.

At that time, Council on American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said opponents who disagreed with Saifuddin’s politics wanted to unjustly exclude her from civic participation.

“Any time an American Muslim rises to a prominent position, or starts to rise to prominence, that tiny minority of ‘Islamophobes’ in our society goes into action and seeks to marginalize and disenfranchise that individual,” Hooper said.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.