Tonight there will be a Greek Shabbat held at UIUC’s Chabad on campus (509 S. 4th Street). The Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, and the Jewish sorority, Sigma Delta Tau, are invited to the function together. The dinner will include a five course of meal of home-baked challah, fish, chicken soup, kugels, and there will be special entertainment as well. The dinner starts at 5 p.m.
Archive for February, 2007
Greek Shabbat Dinner
Published by Nicole Gutnayer February 23rd, 2007 in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 0 CommentsJHP Retreat brings six Universities together
Published by Ashley Helaudais February 23rd, 2007 in Temple University. 0 Comments
Six of Temple’s Jewish Heritage Program interns are joining with interns from five other schools Friday morning for a retreat.
The retreat will begin with a mentoring event at Liberty Plaza in Center City. Temple’s interns will team up with those from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, New York University, SUNY Binghamton, and the University of Delaware at this 156 person event, where each university is responsible for leading the other five in an activity. Temple and University of Delaware interns will lead Jewish Geography, a trivia game using Jewish-related questions about the fifty states.
At Liberty Plaza, the interns will have the opportunity to meet with various Jewish professionals. After this they head to the Sheridan Hotel, where the rest of their activities will be hosted. Among those activities are Shabbat dinner, Human Bingo, a Campus Connections discussion on JHP programming, an improvisation group, aushi making, and the retreat’s conclusion with a Havdalah ceremony.
AEPi Conclave at Temple
Published by Ashley Helaudais February 23rd, 2007 in Temple University. 0 CommentsThis Friday, Temple’s chapter of Jewish fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) will host the Mid-Atlantic Conclave, where brothers from all over the east coast, a number estimated in the hundreds, will gather at our school. The conclave will begin with a Shabbat dinner on Friday night that will be co-hosted by Hillel and open to the public. The dinner will be followed by a basketball tournament held in Temple’s Pearson Hall, where chapters will challenge each other for a Conclave trophy.
Saturday’s activities will begin at the Holiday Express in Center City, with workshops taught by the region’s most successful brothers. The president of Temple’s chapter, Marc Prine, will be teaching a course on succeeding as a rush chairman, the head recruiter, a position he held last year.
“The workshops span to a variety of things such as the different positions in the house, risk management, and how to use your experience in AEPi to benefit your life after graduation,” Prine told CampusJ in an interview.
After the workshops, those who are unfamiliar with Philadelphia will be given a tour to include consumption of Philly’s famous cheese steaks, and visits to the Liberty Bell and the National Museum of American Jewish History.
After this the brothers will gather for an awards ceremony at which “Awards are given out for the largest delegation, the one individual who has expounded the most knowledge and is the best delegate,” Prine explained.
The final day of the Conclave is called “World Perfect,” a seminar that will discuss the history of Jewish persecution, and how today’s assimilation is worse, as there are fewer Jews around today then there have ever been. It will feature the film, Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West
The Conclave will finish with a Philadelphia alumni event, and a closing lunch. Brothers who are attending for the first time are being given a half price discount.
Meredith Mishkin
Published by Meredith Mishkin February 23rd, 2007 in University of Pittsburgh. 0 Commentsa sophomore studying philosophy and international area studies at the University of Pittsburgh. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I wrote my first book of poems at age 6. However, since then I’ve struggled to write a piece as moving and insightful.
I am an intended journalism minor at Queens College. Originally from Seattle, WA, I transferred to Queens after studying in Israel at the Jerusalem campus of the Los Angeles based University of Judaism. Currently a sophomore, I write for the Knight News, Queens College’s only student-run newspaper. I hope to facilitate lively discussions about Jewish life on campus by presenting the facts in a fair and balanced manner. I encourage everyone to comment on my articles and together we can keep each other informed.
Prof Promotes Arab-Israeli School
Published by Rivka Bukowsky February 22nd, 2007 in Main. 1 CommentDr. Arie Zmora returned to the University of Minnesota, where he taught in 2001-02, to discuss his new cross-cultural school. Kathryn Nelson covered the event for The Minnesota Daily.
The College for Reconciliation and Development, an educational facility spanning four campuses and straddling the borders of Palestine and Israel, is a new project for Zmora and his partners.
The mission of the college, Zmora said, will be to provide equal opportunities for both Arab and Israeli students while focusing on issues of coexistence and civic education between the two.
Since 2000, the organization has been led by a team of Middle Eastern partners who helped develop curriculums for approximately 10,000 Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian middle and high school students.
The College for Reconciliation and Development will use these past examples to reach out to higher education students.
The college-level studies will emphasize tolerance, critical thinking and open conversation between Middle Eastern students - not politics, Zmora said.
The organization has begun to break ground in several areas, but must be flexible on the plans of the college because of the instability in the region, he said.
Zmora said the organization envisions a four-campus college situated on the border of Israel and Palestine that will cater to about 60 students and cost approximately $10 million.
At the college, buses will provide transportation between campuses and security clearance badges will be given to each student which, he said, will lessen the need for constant “humiliation by checkpoint.”
From Holocaust Denial Conference To MIT
Published by Rivka Bukowsky February 22nd, 2007 in Main. 2 Comments
Notorious for attending Iran’s “Global Vision of the Holocaust Conference,” Neturei Karta Rabbi Dovid Weiss will speak at MIT tonight, Raphael Kohan reports for The Jewish Advocate.
The event, co-sponsored by MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, is called “Foreign Policy and Social Justice: A Jewish View, a Muslim View,” and Rabbi Weiss is presenting the Jewish view.
Boston University professor Ari Trachtenberg expressed his displeasure in a series of e-mails to Deborah Fitzgerald, dean of the SHASS. Trachtenberg has subsequently disseminated the e-mails on the Jewish Boston listserv.
“You are publicly sponsoring a discussion of most hateful ideology under the guise of valiant principles,” he wrote. “Freedom of speech is extremely important, but it is deeply tied to the moral imperative to protest hateful speech. I hope that MIT lives up to this moral imperative.”
Weiss, associate director of the ultra-Orthodox, anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta, drew the wrath of his own organization as well as the Satmar Hasidim and mainstream Jewry after his appearance at the Iranian conference, according to Trachtenberg.
Deborah Lipstadt, director of the Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University and a foremost expert on Holocaust denial, believes it is beyond the university’s power to monitor who comes to campus except in extreme cases. She does, however, hope that this event flies way under the radar, and that Weiss speaks to an empty room.
“They’re nothings. They’re contemptuous,” Lipstadt told the Advocate. “Whoever invited them did it for scandal’s sake. It behooves the community not to make a fuss. People should not go demonstrate, people should ignore them. This man deserves nothing from us, protesting would be a big mistake. Do not offer him legitimacy.”
They take the Second Amendment seriously at the University of Utah, where the State Supreme Court has ruled that guns are permitted.
But students who want to hear former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak speak today must leave their firearms at home, Dustin Gardiner reports for The Daily Utah Chronicle.
This decision is the result of cooperation between the U, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and gun rights activists-parties that have been in conflict over the U campus gun debate.
John Morris, general legal counsel for the U, said Shurtleff gave the U permission to bar concealed weapons from the event because it is being cosponsored by Kol Ami-a local Jewish synagogue-and state law allows religious groups to ban firearms from services.
“(Barak) won’t appear if we can’t provide that kind of security,” Morris said.
Morris said the synagogue was asked to sponsor the event, in part, because its participation would allow the U to ban guns from Kingsbury Hall.
“I don’t know that they would have been involved otherwise,” Morris said. “It’s not the only reason, but clearly it has been a factor in asking the congregation to cosponsor.”
The U will set up metal detectors and provide lockers for concealed weapons permit holders to store their guns.
Gun rights activists who staunchly opposed the U’s campus-wide gun ban said that though the attorney general’s interpretation of state gun laws is a stretch, they are supporting the deal.
“Kingsbury Hall does not qualify as a religious (venue); however, we are going to accept it in the spirit of cooperation,” said Clark Aposhian, a lobbyist and director of the Utah Self-Defense Instructors’ Network.
Pictured above is senior Brent Tenney and his gun, in a photo taken by Lennie Mahler. Tenney is president of the Second Amendment Students of Utah.
Columnist: Anti-Semitism In College Papers
Published by Rivka Bukowsky February 22nd, 2007 in Main. 0 CommentsJewish Week columnist Jonathan Mark surveys college papers and singles out some as anti-Semitic:
In the University of North Carolina’s Daily Tar Heel (Feb. 9), one woman, whose self-description indicates she is black, writes: “Friends who know me weren’t surprised to learn that my Zionist boyfriend and I broke up last summer shortly after Israel began dropping bombs on Lebanese children. But the friends who really knew me were surprised to learn that I had even dated a Zionist to begin with. In my defense, I thought he was just Jewish when it all began — a progressive one who was white but had tendencies for black supremacy. Politically, we aligned well,” but the boyfriend “would stop short at any criticism of the Israeli government’s racist, oppressive policies. And what’s worse, he would sometimes defend them.” He even acted like “Israel had a right to defend itself. So every time Israel did something abominable I’d increasingly begin to hold him personally responsible.”
Over at the Columbia Daily Spectator (Feb. 19), one writer attended a panel celebrating Israeli-Indian relations. She thought the panel “very biased,” “right-wing fundamentalists” who extolled “Islamophobia.” After all, one panelist was from the American Jewish Committee that recently “endorsed an article … conflating Jewish criticism of the Israeli state policies with anti-Semitism.” And then there was “the Israeli occupation and apartheid wall.” And “both Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter” charge Israel with apartheid.
Who Gets To Speak Next At Brandeis?
Published by Rivka Bukowsky February 22nd, 2007 in Main. 0 Comments
After reporting on donor trouble at Brandeis, The Jewish Week’s Larry Cohler-Esses covers the latest dilemma: who gets to speak next?
Cohler-Esses reports that while Brandeis President Jehuda Reinharz has supported inviting right-wing speaker Daniel Pipes, left-wing students’ preferred speaker - Norman Finkelstein, pictured above - got no statement of support.
In a personal letter to Pipes, Jehuda Reinharz disavowed a report that he and an aide had criticized Pipes. Indeed, Reinharz wrote, he and his aide, John Hose, looked forward to personally attending Pipes’ lecture and meeting with him afterward in his presidential office.
“I trust that the student groups who organize these events will manage your return visit in the spring with dispatch,” Reinharz wrote, “and you will be recognized by Brandeis as the scholar you are.”
Reinharz’s undated letter, posted on Pipes’ Web site on Feb. 17, marked the latest development in a debate about free debate at Brandeis following controversy over former President Jimmy Carter’s appearance there last month. Carter’s appearance drew heated opposition in some quarters due to his criticism of Israel for practicing “apartheid” policies toward Palestinians in the West Bank.
As a result of Carter’s visit, some donors threatened to stop contributing to the school, established in 1948 as a Jewish-sponsored, non-sectarian school. At the same time, inspired by Carter’s visit, separate right-leaning and left-leaning student groups initiated invitations to Pipes and Finkelstein, respectively.
But since Carter’s visit, the administration has set up a new vetting process for speakers invited to talk about the Middle East, and no firm date has been set for either man.
Pipes, however, said Monday of his prospective visit, “I believe it’s got a green light, on a certain condition.” He did not elaborate. Finkelstein, meanwhile, reported his invitation was at an “impasse” with a student-staff committee set up to consider speaker invitations as part of the new vetting process. He said he had received no communication from Reinharz or any other university official.
“He who pays the piper calls the tune,” Finkelstein charged, suggesting fear of donor reaction was playing a role in the would-be speakers’ seeming disparate treatment. “Pipes is powerful enough to hit back.”
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