Russian-Israeli Settlers in "The Territory"

Amid all the debate about the Israeli settler movement there's relatively little discussion of the fact that of the roughly 500,000 settlers, around 100,000 of them hail from the Former Soviet Union.

Intrigued by these figures, Ukrainian director Dmitriy Khavin started speaking with settlers to find out what brought them there. These conversations became the heart of his recently released film, The Territory. While Zionist ideology and the settlements' affordable housing are factors, the most common thread among the interviewees is their takeaway lesson from having been oppressed as Jews in the Soviet Union.

Many of Khavin's subjects express a deep desire to protect what they feel is rightfully theirs – a desire made that much stronger by having expected to never see Israel at all. "We hold onto this land with all our might," says one man. "We cling to it with our teeth."

Over the course of the film, we meet Russian immigrants from all walks of life – parents and children, computer programmers and bike mechanics – who feel they've finally found the place where they belong.

Shame on Campus

Brooklyn College President Karen Gould botches handling of an anti-Israel conference 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 

Saturday, February 9, 2013

So much for academic freedom at Brooklyn College.

There was no place at an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic campus program for four students who attempted to attend with the goal of expressing contrary views.

At the order of a representative of Students for Justice in Palestine, and while a school administrator stood by, campus security forced the four members of Hillel, a Jewish student society, out of the event.

The expulsions are a severe blot on the record of college President Karen Gould, as well as on the standing of Paisley Currah, chair of the political science department, which co-sponsored lectures devoted to the so-called BDS movement.

Gould and Currah had defended the department’s co-sponsorship as an exercise in academic freedom. Gould, for one, urged people with differing views to attend and speak their minds.

“I encourage those who do attend with opposing views to participate in the discussion, ask tough questions and challenge any ideas with which they disagree,” she wrote.

That’s not what happened for student Melanie Goldberg and three companions. She said she brought opposing fact sheets to distribute at the end of the program.

When a member of the sponsoring group saw her taking notes on the papers, she said, he demanded that she surrender them or be expelled.

Goldberg refused. Security was called. Goldberg said she complained to college Vice President Milga Morales, only to be told, “It’s their event and they are calling the shots.”

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Serving in the Israeli Army without being in the Israeli Army

By Moshe Pollock

I removed my army uniform, grabbed my towel and trudged off to the shower room. The four other men in my barracks had already headed for the mess hall. It was the conclusion of another rewarding day of serving the Israeli army.

Every year, individuals from more than 60 countries come to Israel to volunteer for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) under the auspices of Sar-El (the Hebrew acronym for "Service to Israel"). They are not given weapons. They do not serve in tanks. But they do wear uniforms and live on army bases. They work in warehouses, hospitals, kitchens, garages and other places, relieving the load on soldiers. They take over functions that enable the military personnel to focus on the essential duties of defending Israel.

My Sar-El group was atypical in that it served for only week because of the holidays. Sar-El service generally extends for three weeks to a maximum of three months. But our group was illustrative of the persons who volunteer. There were 25 of us representing 13 nations including Israel. Evenly divided between men and women, we ranged in age from 18 to about 70. Approximately 40% of us were not Jewish. There was a babel of English accents and a variety of backgrounds. For example, there were a taxi driver from Belgrade, a Zurich policeman and a nurse from Finland.

We were assigned to the IDF medical supply base. I worked with about a half dozen others of our team in packing thousands of individual medical kits. We counted out the burn dressings, IV catheters, gauze rolls, tourniquets and pressure dressings. We laughed and exchanged stories of our personal histories while we filled the kits. But it was sobering to recognize just what our work product would be utilized for. Repeatedly it was said, "May none of these kits ever be used."

Our group performed another task. We worked on emergency packs to be distributed to victims of earthquakes, tsunamis and other disasters around the world. What we had to do was unwrap the previously sealed packs and remove the alcohol prep pads. Why? The pads had been manufactured in Israel and this fact was printed on the wrapper. If Israel attempted to donate, through a third country or an international relief organization, tens of thousands of these emergency medical kits to a nation experiencing a crisis, they might be rejected.

Certain Arab, Islamic or other countries might not accept the critically-needed kits if they came from "The Little Satan," Israel. To ensure that they will be accepted, the IDF ensures that its medical emergency kits contain no indication that they emanate from Israel. We replaced the mistakenly inserted alcohol pads imprinted with "Made in Israel" with those saying "Manufactured in the U.K."

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UC Davis protesters abused Jewish students, pro-Israel group claims

January 29, 2013

The pro-Israel group AMCHA Initiative claimed that Jewish students at the University of California, Davis were abused and threatened at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus.

In a letter sent Monday to UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, AMCHA Initiative co-founders Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin alleged that demonstrators carrying "death to Zionism" placards occupied a public building on Nov. 19 and harassed pro-Israel students. The letter also was CCed to University of California President Mark Yudof and others.

AMCHA Initiative released a video showing protesters comparing Zionism with Nazism and telling supporters of Israel to leave.

"We are deeply concerned about the virulent and hate-filled actions taking place on the UC Davis campus as a result of students' religion and beliefs," Beckwith and Rossman-Benjamin, faculty members at the University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote to Katehi.

According to the two, several UC Davis faculty members were present at the event but did not intervene.

The university said Monday it was investigating the claims.

In recent years, several universities in the University of California system have become a battleground between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups.

Last year, 10 pro-Palestinian students at the University of California, Irvine were found guilty of disrupting a lecture by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren on campus and sentenced to community service.