As we are informed:-
In a swift, decisive move, Eric Fingerhut, the new president and chief executive officer of Hillel International informed the head of Swarthmore College’s (former) Hillel just who is in the driver’s seat when it comes to making policy decisions. The Swarthmore chapter’s unanimous vote on Sunday, Dec. 8, to reject Hillel guidelines regarding Israel, means it cannot use the name Hillel. “Let me be very clear – ‘anti-Zionists’ will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances,” Fingerhut wrote,
And we learn more:
The local Federation paper, the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, reveals that there are more details to be worked out. It quotes what it refers to as the “Hillel of Greater Philadelphia’s staff person at Swarthmore, Rabbi Kelilah Miller,” who, presumably receives support, training, communications or other benefits from being affiliated with Hillel. But Miller said she plans to “challenge the students to live up to the commitments they expressed in the resolution they adopted.” In other words, she’s committed to ensuring the students continue to thumb their nose at Hillel’s guidelines.
Miller? The one signed-on to this last year's J Street letter? Who was in Netiovot recently (did she visit a YESHA Jewish community to learn?)
Back in 2002, Miller provides an insight into the development of a 19-year old freshman who deosn't really care that society needs protect itself to the concept that perhaps Jewish students do not need to worry about exposure to anti-Zionism:-
I'm sorry, but to my mind, that type of thinking, which presumbably only further "progressively" developed is the worse thing Israel defenders need in a Hillel Rabbi.
I left this comment at the Hillel site:
I hope that if Swarthmore Hillel decides to remain "Open" but unaffiliated (will they call themselves Shammai?), that I and some of my colleagues will be invited to speak? I live on the eastern side of some fictitious line colored Green that once delineated the site where Arab aggression a la 1948 stopped and had no international legal; standing other than being a cease-fire line recognized in an Armistice Agreement but which Arabs flouted from Day One. In my area, there are Jewish communities, reconstituted (see Preamble to League of Nations decision to award a Mandate to Gt. Britain for the purpose of a Jewish national home based on the Jewish people's historical connection with that land [oh, and Arabs were never mentioned; only non-Jews]), since Arab ethnic-cleansing during the Mandate period expelled Jews from places in which they resided for centuries and even before the conquering Arabs arrived when they occupied the Jewish homeland in 638 CE, like Gaza, Hebron, Shchem, Jenin and the Old City of Jerusalem.
We have a great narrative to tell the students and I think this title, best sums it up: "Apartheid Roads and other Lies They Told You". I can even bring a PowerPoint Presentation.
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