I

n 1988, the Muslim Student Association and the Palestinian 
Solidarity Committee took to the Diag to construct a 
wooden “shanty house,” a popular protest among anti-

apartheid activists of the time. The MSA and PSC were 
demonstrating in solidarity with the first Palestinian Intifada, 
painting on their shanty “STOP ISRAELI OPPRESSION.”

Angered by the demonstration, members of the right-leaning 

pro-Israel group Tagar responded in the fall with their own 
carpentry project: an Israeli school bus painted with flames 
shooting from its windows. The display was a memorial to a 
recent attack, where a mother and her three sons burned alive 
after terrorists firebombed the bus they were riding. The Tagar 
model carried the names of the four victims, as well as the 
demand “STOP ARAB TERRORISM, COME TO THE PEACE 
TABLE.”

Within hours of its construction, student complaints 

led Tagar members to reword their sign as “STOP ALL 
TERRORISM.” But it was already too late.

Outraged by the initial message, the Michigan Student 

Assembly — a predecessor to Central Student Government 
— moved to condemn Tagar, demanding an apology and 
threatening to derecognize the group. The Michigan Daily’s 
editorial page piled on, calling Tagar racist and endorsing the 
Assembly’s resolution to cut off funding.

The 1988 controversy over Diag demonstrations was one 

in a long line of battles between the University’s large Jewish 
student population and vocal left wing — battles that go back 
more than thirty years. Fights over divestment resolutions are 
just the latest manifestations of tensions that have boiled over 
into racism, anti-Semitism, and exclusionary rules on speech. 
Israel-Palestine is a polarizing topic on any campus, but this 
is exacerbated at the University of Michigan, a school equally 
known for its radical activism and vibrant Jewish community 
(two traits not mutually exclusive). Powerful pro-Israel groups 
fuel this extreme polarization, whose resulting climate has led 
students to attack each other personally, question their own 
identities, and try to overthrow the status quo.

On campus and abroad

The University first became a popular school among Jewish 

students in the 1920s, when a rising tide of anti-Semitism led 
elite schools like Harvard to begin capping the number of 
Jews they would admit. The University was one of a handful 
of schools to scoop these students up, building a long-term 
pipeline from Jewish communities across the country. During a 
tour of Michigan Hillel last month, Tilly Shames said she often 
meets Jewish students from out of state with three or even 
four generations of Wolverines in their family. Shames is the 
executive director of Michigan Hillel, which has served as the 
University’s center for Jewish life on campus since 1926.

The state of Israel was founded two decades later in 1948, but 

its inception as a major political issue for American Jews, let 
alone college students, would not come until the late sixties. In 
their book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” political 
scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt contend that a 
political connectivity to Israel is largely the result of a number of 
Arab-Israeli wars, especially the Six Day-War. From “The Road 
to Renaissance,” a history of Hillel International: “Spurred by 
pride in Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six Day-War Jewish students 
created groups that championed causes from Soviet Jewry to 
Israel, Jewish feminism to chavurot, Ethiopian Jewry to the 
environment.”

Victories led to a mixture of pride and fear among Jews 

worldwide; pride in defending Israel, but fear of future wars. By 
the 1970s, Israel had developed into a crux of Jewish cultural 
and political identity, which became a contributing factor in 
the deep relationship between America and the Jewish state. 
During the same time, college towns like Ann Arbor became 
ground zero for the New Left. The University has remained 
synonymous with radical student movements, while continuing 
to cultivate one of the largest, most vibrant Jewish communities 
of any university. The tension between these two factions would 
be palpable by the 1980s, with the 1988 Diag demonstrations 
serving just one example.

In 1989, after three Michigan Daily editorials were 

particularly harsh in their criticism of Israel and Zionism 
(“Zionism … is from its inception a racist construct” read one 

piece), hundreds of students protested outside of the Student 
Publications Building. They held signs like “Daily editorials are 
anti-Jewish” and “Print facts not slander.”

This tension between Jewish students and pro-Palestinian 

advocates on the left did not disappear, though it temporarily 
eased during the less contentious 1990s. After the failure of the 
Camp David peace talks in 2000, Palestinians launched the 
second Intifada and began calls for boycotts, divestment, and 
sanctions on Israel — BDS. In April 2002, students rallied for 
divestment from Israel at more than 30 campuses across the 
country. That same year, University students founded Students 
Allied for Freedom and Equality, or SAFE, the campus chapter 
of Students for Justice in Palestine. SAFE called for divestment 
and peacefully protested outside of a large Israel-focused 
conference at the University that year. The Daily came under 
fire again, this time erroneously publishing that SAFE incited 
riots.

In the early 2000s, many of the same narratives surrounding 

BDS were playing out across the country, leading national pro-
Israel groups to revamp their campus strategies.

As tensions rose in 2003, the American Israel Public Affairs 

Committee, or AIPAC, brought 240 students to Washington, 
D.C. for advocacy training seminars. Since at least 1980, all-
expenses paid trips, national conferences and training seminars 
have been a key tactic in AIPAC’s campus effort. Michigan 
Hillel sends a cohort of students to the annual policy conference 
every year.

In a speech at AIPAC’s 2010 conference, Leadership 

Development Director Jonathan Kessler told a crowd, “AIPAC’s 
job is to identify, engage, and educate” leaders in student 
government and political groups.

Doing this fulfills two goals for AIPAC: advancing the pro-

Israel cause in academic environments, where opinions of Israel 
are typically more critical, and befriending the students who 
are “self-selecting” to become America’s future policymakers. 
When students return to campus, they come with the tools and 
the zeal to spread the pro-Israel message and dismantle BDS 
efforts. Talking about a 2010 divestment resolution by students 
at the University of California, Berkeley, Kessler stated matter-

of-factly, “We’re going to make sure that pro-Israel students 
take over the student government and reverse the vote.”

“This is how AIPAC operates in our nation’s capital,” Kessler 

told the audience. “This is how AIPAC must operate on our 
nation’s campuses.”

This March, some 2,500 students from all fifty states attended 

AIPAC’s annual policy conference, including hundreds of 
student government presidents.

Defining “pro-Israel” at Michigan

Like AIPAC, Hillel has taken on an aggressive and often 

controversial strategy in pushing the pro-Israel message on 
campus. In 2002 Hillel International established its Center for 
Israel Affairs and co-founded the Israel on Campus Coalition; 
the latter began as a national coordinating committee and 
provides strategic consulting to improve Israel’s image on 
campus. For a short time in the mid-2000s, Hillel produced 
signs and T-shirts with the slogan “Wherever we stand, we 
stand with Israel.”

Michigan Hillel is home to seven Israel-focused student 

groups (not all political in nature) and estimates that its 
programs reach around 3,000 of Michigan’s 4,000-4,500 
Jewish undergrads. Along with being the center of Jewish 
life on 550 campuses, Hillel often speaks with the presumed 
authority of a united Jewish voice. At the University and other 
schools, Hillel International’s hard line stance on Israel can 
be deeply problematic, as it represents a large break for many 
progressive Jews.

Some of these students have found representation in J Street, 

a liberal pro-Israel group that preaches a two-state solution 
and opposes BDS. J Street has seen its presence grow both on 
campus and in Washington, acting as a foil to the increasingly 
controversial AIPAC. Last week, 1,100 students from around the 
country attended J Street’s fifth annual conference as members 
of J Street U college chapters. Speakers blasted recent remarks 
by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and after Hillel 
International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut rescinded an 
offer to speak, students walked to Hillel headquarters, posted 
sticky notes on the windows in protest, and left a box of letters 
demanding a meeting.

Despite disagreements with J Street by Hillel International, 

J Street U chapters are growing and often find a home in the 
campus Hillel. More than 40 Hillels sent groups to J Street’s 
conference, including Michigan.

“A lot of times you’ll see pro-Israel as ‘you have to love Israel 

no matter what’ and just supporting Israel blindly,” said Ari 
Schoenberg, co-chair of J Street U’s Midwest region. “Pro-
Israel is loving Israel in its best way that it can be. So that means, 

like, being critical of things that we aren’t proud of.”

Schoenberg speaks for many young Jews with a progressive 

view on Israel, whose growing numbers have led to more 
representation and power on campus than in the past. In 
February, students packed into the Michigan Union for an 
event with Ari Shavit, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper 
Haaretz, and enthusiastically applauded as he demanded a 
more progressive view on Israel.

“We need liberal Zionism again.” Shavit told the energized 

Hillel crowd. “Only that will give (young people) the energy, the 
tools, and the concepts to belong to our people.”

Hillel International has moved slightly away from its former 

slogan in allowing J Street into the fold, and its Israel Guidelines 
assert that it “welcomes a diversity of student perspectives on 
Israel.” But there are still those who feel marginalized. Hillel’s 
standards of partnership prohibit sponsoring “organizations, 
groups, or speakers” that present certain points of view. Chief 
among these disallowed perspectives are those who deny 
Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, but the list extends to 
anyone that “delegitimizes” or “demonizes” Israel or who 
supports boycott, divest, and sanctions.

In a recent Michigan Daily op-ed, a handful of Jewish 

students discussed their frustration with Hillel after the 
organization refused to sponsor a “Palestinian Solidarity” 
themed Shabbat dinner. LSA Junior Sarah Blume, a co-author 
of the op-ed, felt a clear takeaway meeting with Shames at 
Hillel: “You are a very much not invited here.”

This fall Blume co-founded, and now co-chairs, the 

University’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. JVP is a 
Palestinian solidarity group for Jews and supports the BDS 
movement. Blume, a junior with a disarming smile, spoke in a 
quick, fiery passion about divestment and Hillel.

“As a Jewish organization and as Hillel as the umbrella of 

Jewish student life, one would think that we would be a part 
of Hillel, but we are not,” Blume said. “They actively disclude 
people who … disagree with the political stance on Israel.”

Asked if she considered herself pro-Israel, Blume responded, 

“I’m anti-occupation,” adding, “I don’t like the labels.”

That dislike of labels was evident as JVP’s op-ed called for 

the University to join the “Open Hillel” movement, which 
presses individual chapters and Hillel International to abandon 
the pro-Israel standards of partnership.

Along with a few other students, Blume also attended 

Open Hillel’s conference at Harvard this fall. Swarthmore 
College Hillel, after officially breaking from the international 
organization, renamed itself Kehilah, meaning “Community.”

In an e-mail, Shames, the Hillel Director, defended Hillel’s 

“broad and diverse array of programs,” writing that Israel is a 

part of Hillel’s mission.

“Our Hillel does not expect or insist that all participants 

in Hillel will pursue our Israel mission. But we expect that 
our mission will be respected just as our Hillel respects the 
diversity of views among our Hillel and campus community.”

Blume does not feel very respected.
“I don’t want to be affiliated with an organization like Hillel 

that discludes and speaks out against and … totally discourages 
and offends the voices that I support.”

LSA junior Jonathan Friedman, chair of Hillel’s Israel 

Cohort, was empathetic to Blume’s position. Though Friedman 
opposes BDS, he said he hopes students with differing views 
“have the same opportunity to express themselves.”

A major goal of Friedman’s as cohort chair is to “make the 

environment more inclusive” for students who feel unwelcome 
at Hillel — concerns he called “quite disheartening.”

Friedman, with shaggy hair, a bushy beard and dark, 

glassy eyes, speaks slowly and hesitantly, with an inflection 
of nervousness that grows when discussing more sensitive 
topics. At numerous events on Israel and BDS, he engaged with 
students across the ideological spectrum. He believes in the 
necessity of a Jewish state, but was cautious to note that he can 
only speak for himself.

“Criticism of Israel is healthy, and by no means disqualifies 

someone from being pro-Israel.”

BDS, Friedman fears, divides people and hardens them, 

pushing Israelis and Palestinians further apart.

LSA Junior Jacob Abudaram, a CSG representative and 

Friedman’s roommate, was disappointed with the 2014 
divestment debate and the current campus climate since, which 
he calls “terrible.”

“It puts everyone in a box,” Abudaram said, “I was 

immediately put in the Hillel box, the pro-Israel box, so that 
immediately excludes me from being pro-Palestine, which I 
very much identify as.”

Abudaram is Jewish and spent a gap year living in Israel 

through the program Kivunim, where he worked on grassroots, 
peace-building efforts. He spoke at length about the conflict, 
Judaism, and tensions within American Jewry. As an 
underclassman, Abudaram interned at AIPAC, worked with 
pro-Israel groups WolvPAC and Tamid, and ran for CSG — he 
had “poured his soul” into unifying work during his gap year, 
and hoped to do the same on campus.

When asked what was going through his mind during last 

year’s divestment debate, the usually well-spoken Abudaram 
struggled to articulate his feelings on the polarization and grew 
quiet.

“It was saddening for me.”

Wednesday, April 1, 2015 // The Statement
4B
Wednesday, April 1, 2015 // The Statement 
5B

 Pro-Israel groups and the campus divide

By James Brennan, Columnist

‘Wherever We Stand’:

ILLUSTRATION BY LEVI KIPKE

ILLUSTRATION BY LEVI KIPKE

ILLUSTRATION BY JAKE WELLINS

See ISRAEL, Page 8B

