DC Students Protest Hillel’s Ties to Israeli Nationalist Bennett
By Sam Kestenbaum January 19, 2017
Open Hillel, a movement of Jewish students who seek to widen discourse about Israel on college campuses, is holding a rally this afternoon — urging Hillel International to end its financial partnership with Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister.
The rally is taking place outside Hillel International headquarters in Washington D.C.
@OpenHillelNow rally today for @HillelIntl to end partnership w occupation leader #NaftaliBennett @jewschool_com https://t.co/53abr6JiHb
— Aryeh Bernstein (@aryehlou) January 19, 2017
“As the U.S. prepares to inaugurate a president who has demonstrated a profound disregard for civil liberties and civil rights, Open Hillel is urging Hillel International to renounce its partnering with Bennett, an Israeli cabinet member who has demonstrated a similar disregard for democratic values,” said Elana Metz, national organizer of Open Hillel in a press statement.
Who do you serve @HillelIntl ?! Now is not the time to partner with right wing bigots! #J20 #JewishResistance #OurJudaismIncludes pic.twitter.com/xT9WG74yKT
— Open Hillel (@OpenHillelNow) January 19, 2017
Open Hillel is a 4-year-old student group that seeks to abolish Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership rules that prevent campus Hillels from working with individuals or groups that “delegitimize” the Jewish state, or support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeted at Israel.
Last summer, Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs launched a new initiative to strengthen Jewish identity on college campuses — teaming up with Chabad, Olami and Hillel.
The Israeli government has vowed to contribute $22 million to the initiative, Haaretz reported, with the partnering organizations investing $44 million. The ministry establishing a company Mosaic United, to manage the initiative.
But Open Hillel students object to the partnership because of Bennett’s politics.
“Hillel’s partnership with Bennett will undermine its stated commitments to pluralism and open discourse,” the Open Hillel statement said. “Bennett opposes the recognition of Reform and Conservative rabbis; opposes marriage equality in Israel; and opposes interfaith marriages and relationships.”
Leading up to the rally, students posted images on Twitter of signs they would carry, including references to president-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as president this weekend and is also the source of division and protest among Jews. “Hillel, who do you serve?” read one, “Your students? Or Trump & Bennett?”
Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
