Featured this week

Boston: Middle East Peace Unlikely, Israel's U.N. Rep. Says
by Sam Kuttner

Even if the Israel-Palestinian conflict were solved tomorrow, the resolution would not translate into the end of violence in the Middle East, said a high-ranking Israeli official last week to an audience of 100 students at the School of Law auditorium. Dan Gillerman, the Israel ambassador to the United Nations, focused his concerns of violence around the conflict that broke out in the Middle East last summer between Israel and Hizbullah -- a Lebanese political party with a history of terrorism. (Daily Free Press)

UC Berkeley: Differing Groups Rally at Talk
by Cristina Bautista

Hundreds rallied peacefully prior to Carter’s appearance to show their support or disapproval of Carter’s views on Palestine, with some groups using the venue as a forum to discuss their different platforms. Members of the Jewish Student Union, Israel Action Committee and Berkeley Hillel held an Israeli flag and handed out flyers listing some questions for audience members to ask during the question and answer period. Group members said Carter’s book “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” fails to create a dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “People are hurt because they feel as if dialogue cannot come of this,” said Jewish Student Union president Lev Ingman. “If you actually represent both sides of the issue, then it’s a dialogue.” (Daily Californian)

Chicago: History in the Making

Benny Morris again is causing ripples in the pool of public opinion with his warnings about Iran. His essay “This Holocaust will be different" (Jerusalem Post, Jan. 18, 2007) warned of an Iranian leadership that hopes to inflict a nuclear Holocaust because it “sees the destruction of Israel as a supreme divine command, as a herald of the second coming, and the Muslims dispatched collaterally as so many martyrs in the noble cause. Morris recently spoke about "A Second Holocaust? The Implications of a Nuclear Iran" at the University of Chicago, in an appearance sponsored by JUF’s Jewish Community Relations Council/Hillel Israel Initiative and the university’s Chicago Friends of Israel group. He also met with area academics participating in JUF’s Faculty Advisory Committee, and appeared at DePaul University. (JUF News)

Cornell: Local Collegian Initiates Fundraising Effort During Semester in Israel
by Rachel L. Axelbank

Two local summer camps have each pledged to provide 10 spots for children from the embattled Israeli city of Sderot. In response to an appeal earlier this year from Cornell University junior Masha Rifkin of Newton, Jews throughout the Boston area have rallied around the effort to fund the children’s voyage, surpassing organizers’ expectations and heightening their hopes. While studying abroad this semester at Tel Aviv University, Masha, 20, was horrified to learn that the citizens of Sderot have been living for years under the constant threat of “Kassams” – free-flight artillery rockets – and that the city’s children are growing up in a culture of fear. “It’s heartbreaking there,” said Rifkin, speaking to the Advocate from Israel. “People are walking around like they’ve just given up.” (Jewish Advocate)

Haifa: Survivors Don’t Necessarily Transmit Shoah Traumas, Study Finds
by Sheldon Kirshner

New research by Haifa University developmental psychologist Avi Sagi-Schwartz and his colleagues has exploded the commonly held belief that Holocaust survivors transmit their traumas to their children and grandchildren. The findings show that survivors are “very resilient and adaptive,” even after enduring terrible disasters, he said in an e-mail interview from Haifa. Sagi-Schwartz, whose mother is a survivor, found that the offsprings of survivors exhibit “the same normative behaviors” as children whose parents were not traumatized by the Holocaust. (Canadian Jewish News)

Maryland: Student Recalls Serving in Israeli Army
by Melissa Weiss

Standing at his Israeli checkpoint in the Palestinian town of Nablus during a hot summer day, Elie Berman found it peculiar as a man in a heavy coat approached his Israeli Defense Forces unit. The stranger was asked to remove his coat, but he refused, leading Berman and his fellow soldiers to aim their M16s at the young man. As the troublesome stranger removed his coat, he revealed the explosives taped tightly across his chest, resulting in his arrest. Berman, now a freshman government and politics major, is a former soldier in the Israeli army. After 14 months serving in the army, his first semester back in the United States, although less exciting, has been a challenge of its own. (DiamondBack)

Oxford University Debate: 'Pro-Israel Lobby Has Stifled Western Debate'
by Jonny Paul

A debate at Oxford University last week concluded that Israel's supporters are "stifling Western debate," with two-thirds of the student audience at the event agreeing. The event, held at the Oxford Union, which is independent from the university, marked the first time the Doha Debates - a forum for free speech in the Arab world - have held an event outside Qatar. Dr. Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, argued against the motion, saying the event in Oxford was proof that lively debate on the subject existed. Indyk said controversy over a recent book on the conflict by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter was further evidence that criticism of Israel was not being stifled. "It wasn't the Israeli lobby that made Egypt, Jordan, or Syria dictatorships," he said. (Jerusalem Post)

Pretoria, South Africa: 'SA Can Help to Broker Peace in Israel'
by Hans Pienaar

Calls were made last week for the world community to get more involved in finding a solution to the drawn-out conflict in Israel, which has ground to a stalemate. South Africans should be among those assisting, as they could draw on their experience in destroying apartheid. The calls came from Benjamin Pogrund, a former editor of the Rand Daily Mail and now a peace activist, and Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights monitor. They spoke at the University of Pretoria, in an Africa Dialogue meeting characterised by verbal skirmishes with pro-Palestinian audience members. (Daily Pretoria)

San Diego State: Agriculture Offers a Link to Peace in the Middle East
by Bonnie Stewart

The Peres Center for Peace and the SDSU Fred J. Hansen Institute for World Peace, respectively based in Tel Aviv and San Diego, have launched a project pooling the knowledge of agricultural and water experts from their two respective nations, Israel and the United States, with counterparts from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Greece, Turkey,  Italy, Macedonia and Switzerland. Their common goal is to enhance the yields and develop new strains of such Middle Eastern crops as olives, dates, almonds, grapes, tomatoes and potatoes. Environmentally friendly methods of crop production are key components of this project. (SDSU Universe)

JAFI Sells MASA to Top Colleges

Career advisors from seven top American universities are touring Israel with the Jewish Agency for Israel to learn about the MASA program. MASA, a $50 million collaboration between JAFI and the Israeli government, provides grants for Diaspora Jews aged 18-30 to spend extended time in Israel on academic and social-service programs. The grants of $2,000-$4,500 can be used to pay tuition for more than 150 programs. Additional need-based money is available as well. Representatives from Stanford, Tulane, Duke, Emory, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA and the University of Central Florida flew to Israel on Thursday for a week-long trip to familiarize themselves with the program. JAFI wants the universities to recommend MASA programs to their graduating students or alumni. (JTA News)

1,000 Celebrate Israel at University of British Columbia in Vancouver
by Lauren Kramer

On a night when many Vancouverites were riveted to a Canucks playoff hockey game, more than 1,000 members of the city’s Jewish community flocked to the University of British Columbia’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut. The evening began on a sombre note with a moment of silence for those killed defending Israel. “This past year, 233 soldiers and civilians were killed,” said Geoffrey Druker, chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver’s Yom Hazikaron committee. (Canadian Jewish News)

UC Irvine: Jimmy Carter Visits Calif. Campus

Former President Jimmy Carter urged students at a Southern California university with a history of strained relations between Jewish and Islamic groups to set differences aside and work together to find solutions. "I'd like to see the leaders form a combined group and take my invitation to go to Palestine and see what's going on for yourselves," Carter told a crowd of about 3,300 students and faculty at University of California, Irvine last week. "If you take me up on it, I'll raise the money to pay for your trip," he said. (AP/SFGate)

UConn Halts Move to Arab Emirates Over Israel Policy

A major U.S. university has shelved plans to open a satellite campus in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to the Gulf Arab state's stance toward Israel, the Gulf News daily reported last week. The paper said that it obtained confirmation from the University of Connecticut that it halted plans to open up a campus in the emirate of Dubai following concerns raised by politicians and pressure groups in the U.S. who oppose the UAE's policy toward Israel. "We have put this project on the back burner. We are not actively working on it now," the provost of the university, Peter Nichols, told the paper. Israeli citizens are not permitted to enter the UAE, the Dubai government's tourism Web site states. (Middle East Times)

Cornell: Some Anti-Semites Deny Holocaust
by Tim Fasano

Deborah Lipstadt, professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, discussed the distressing variation on the classic themes of anti-Semitism in a lecture entitled “Holocaust Denial: The New Anti-Semitism.”  Anticipating a question, Lipstadt asked her audience, “How do we respond? What do we do?” Though Lipstadt could offer no overarching solution, she explained that she is currently taking evidence from her trial and posting it online to inform those who do not have the facts necessary to combat Holocaust denial. In order to combat what Lipstadt called the rampant Holocaust denial in the Arab and Muslim world as underscored by comments made by the president of Iran, these pages will be translated into Arabic and Farsi. (Cornell Daily Sun)

Harvard: Israeli Report Criticizes Halutz
by Paras D. Bhayani

The top Israeli military official during the 2006 Lebanon war, currently a student at a Harvard Business School program for experienced executives, has come under withering criticism from an Israeli panel for his conduct during the war. Dan Halutz, who resigned as chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces in February, was harshly reproached in the preliminary report of a commission led by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd. Halutz’s successor as chief of staff, Gabriel Ashkenazi, also attended the Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He graduated in 2004. (Harvard Crimson)

Ohio State: Israel-Palooza Educates Students on Israeli Culture
by Kacia Strous

Ohio State students were invited to eat falafels, exfoliate with minerals from the Dead Sea and celebrate Israel's 59th Independence Day. OSU Hillel and Schottenstein Chabad House joined for the second annual Israel-Palooza to educate students about Israeli culture. "Israel is portrayed so often as part of the conflict in the Middle East. We wanted to show people the love and warmth of Israel," said Anna Bolman, a sophomore in international studies and Hebrew. (Lantern)

Potsdam, Germany: German Reform Students to Study in Israel

Rabbinical students at Germany's Reform seminary will spend their first year of study in Israel. The University of Potsdam and its Reform seminary, the Abraham Geiger College, signed the cooperation agreement with Hebrew Union College last week in Jerusalem, according to a statement. The agreement provides for reduced fees for rabbinical candidates from Germany and sets the groundwork for common research projects and academic exchange. (JTA News)

Quinnipiac: Poll Shows American Women Less Supportive than Men of Israel
by Shmuel Rosner

More numbers from Quinnipiac University about the nature of American support toward Israel show men are more positive than women in their view of foreign countries, a trend most evident with countries like Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, in a survey asking Americans to identify countries in which support of America is the most visible, the public identified England, Canada and Israel as the most favorable and Iran, North Korea and Cuba as the least favorable. (Ha'aretz)

Yale: Student Picked for Anti-Terroirst Academic Program

Delawarean Luke Palder is one of 40 students selected from around the country for a yearlong program that teaches students about terrorist threats directed at the U.S. and allied democracies around the world. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies fellowship begins with a 14 day trip to Israel in August, with briefings from multiple experts and field trips to military bases and border positions. (Delaware Online)

Huge Yeshiva U Turnout at Salute to Israel Parade Up Fifth Avenue

Hundreds of Yeshiva University students, alumni, faculty, administrators, and friends marched up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on a glorious day to celebrate Israel's 59th anniversary of statehood in the annual Salute to Israel Parade. President Richard M. Joel led the YU contingent that accompanied a parade float with live music performed by the popular Jewish rock group Blue Fringe. The float was crowded with student leaders who handed out YU T-shirts to parade onlookers, many of whom were alumni. (Yeshiva University)