Hillel International has long ago parted ways with “Jewish values”
Hillel International describes itself as “the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, fostering a personal connection to Jewish life, learning and Israel.”
When I visited the official website of the organization, the following pop-up ad appeared: “Travel to Israel for Free; Reserve your free 10-day trip this summer with Hillel and Birthright Israel. Go with Hillel.”
Clearly, Hillel is a Jewish zionist organization. The vision of the organization in the U.S. is “a world where every student is inspired to make an enduring commitment to Jewish life, learning and Israel.”
“Jewish life and learning” as described by this organization is inextricably tied to Israel in many people’s minds because of organizations like Hillel International. They believe that Israel, which today controls all of historic Palestine, is their birthright as American, French, English, Brazilian, etc. Jews, and not the birthright of its own indigenous people. (For how I feel, as a Palestinian, about this, please see: The More Plausible and Reasonable History of Palestine and Israel). Israel is not the “birthright” of these young Jews, just as surely as it isn’t the birthright of Trump’s Jewish grandchildren. It is the birthright of the indigenous people of Palestine of all religions.
To be clear, what I am saying is not a denial of Jewish heritage “to what you call your homeland”, as I have been told. I am simply saying that this Jewish heritage, like Christian and Muslim heritage in the Holy Land, belongs to Palestinians of all religions. It’s their “heritage” — not the heritage of Jewish people around the globe.
The zionist connection of Jewish life and learning to what used to be Palestine and is now Israel is largely unquestioned by many young Jews outside Israel, although that is changing today, due to increasing awareness on the part of young American Jews (see IfNotNow) of the Palestinian struggle for justice and freedom, especially as they interact with campus organizations opposed to Israel such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Hillel was founded in 1923 (at the University of Illinois) by Rabbi Benjamin Frankel “to convey Jewish civilization to a new generation” and adopted by B’nai B’rith the following year, splitting from the latter in the 1990's.
By 1939, Hillel had foundations in twelve universities and 18 more were being planned. As admission barriers facing Jewish students dropped in the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s, the population of Jewish students on campus rapidly increased and so did Hillel foundations across the country.
At the beginning, there was no mention of a connection between Jewish civilization and Israel, because, of course, the Holy Land was Palestine then, and had been so for centuries. Before the advent of zionism, the connection to the Holy Land for Jews was religious/spiritual (not territorial) in nature, similar to the connection Muslims and Christians have to that region of the world. The people with a territorial connection to the land are the indigenous Palestinian Arabs — Jews, Christians and Muslims.
In 1998, Hillel received a huge transfusion of funds from Jewish organizations affiliated with Israel and that has made a big difference in its development.
Under the energetic leadership of Richard Joel, Hillel wins support from major Jewish family foundations and local federations of Jewish philanthropy, both to build impressive new facilities and to underwrite new ventures. Its “Campaign for a Jewish Renaissance” raised $37.5 million in 1998 alone.
The following year, Birthright Israel sent the first group of Jewish students to Israel on a free 10-day trip to strengthen their “Jewish identity and connection to the state of Israel”. Hillel became prominent as an activist organization for Israel, organizing a huge rally, the largest of its kind, in Washington D.C. in 2002.
In accordance with Jewish values in the humanistic tradition (see What is Humanistic Judaism?), Hillel students allied themselves with various social justice causes at home and abroad — example, protesting social injustices in Darfur, Sudan in 2003, and helping to rebuild in neighborhoods devastated by 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. They set out to “change the world for the better” with one exception — social justice for Palestinians.
When it comes to Palestine, its history and civilization (see Nur Masalha — Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History), Hillel in the U.S. acts as an Israeli organization rather than an American one. It not only accepts Israel’s “narrative” regarding the conflict, it actively participates in spreading Israel’s propaganda (also known as hasbara), using hasbara guidelines (as set forth here) and often invites Israeli spokespeople to its events.
Once Jewish students’ identity was tied to Israel in this way, it became understandable that those receiving such zionist education (whether at Hillel on campus or in their own communities at home) would easily conflate anti-zionist speech with anti-Semitism and be persuaded to broadcast false accusations about Palestinian rights protesters . For example:
In April 2016, San Francisco Hillel hosted a speaking event with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who implements policies of home demolitions, de jure discrimination, and racial quotas against Palestinians. When students protested the talk, SF Hillel broadcast false accusations that protesters were anti-Semitic and physically threatening towards Jewish students.
At the same time, many university administrators subject Palestinian students to anguish by supporting Israel and its so-called right to security at the expense of their identity and heritage. For example, all ten chancellors of the University of California have rejected the boycott of Israel (BDS) as antithetical to academic freedom, when, in fact, the proposed anti-BDS bill in Congress is unconstitutional.
“This is yet another attempt by U.S. politicians to shield Israel from accountability for its indefensible violations of Palestinian rights by trampling on our First Amendment right to support political boycotts — or even to furnish information about them,” said Rahul Saksena, Palestine Legal staff attorney. “However lawmakers try to twist this bill, it will be unconstitutional. Our elected officials need to start listening and responding to the growing movement for Palestinian rights here in the U.S. instead of enacting laws aimed at silencing that movement and undermining our rights.”
At Chicago University Socialists and Students for Justice in Palestine (faculty and students) are opposing the presence of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in their classroom:
In recent months, under the guise of counter-terrorism, Israel has violently suppressed demonstrations against invasive security measures at the al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site; it murdered seven Palestinians during a botched intelligence mission inside the Gaza Strip; and it massacred over 150 more Palestinians in the Great March of Return, targeting civilians, paramedics, and journalists with high-velocity expanding bullets, designed to “mushroom inside” and permanently maim the body.
When Brig. Gen. (ret.) Meir Elran walked into a classroom off the Main Quad on Tuesday and distributed syllabi to his new students, it became all the more difficult to determine where militarism, U.S. imperialism, and ethno-nationalism end, and the University begins.
Elran’s tenure as deputy director of Military Intelligence for the IDF coincided with the first two years of the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The IDF responded to the First Intifada with a campaign of brutal suppression and torture. Under the slogan, “force, might, and beatings,” the IDF instructed troops to break the bones of Palestinian protesters with truncheons. As Elran oversaw Military Intelligence, the IDF cut off water supplies to Palestinian communities. During the First Intifada, counter-terrorism in Israel meant shutting down all West Bank universities for years at a time, as a means of weaponizing access to education. Today, Elran has come to teach at a university to spread the counter-terrorism techniques he learned thirty years ago … The implications of bringing this rhetoric into the classroom are grave. No matter Elran’s intentions, the basic foundation of his course necessarily encourages students to dismiss the legitimacy of Palestinian struggles for justice, to accept the occupation of Palestine as a normal state of affairs, and to celebrate the “liberal” policies of an army that commits human rights atrocities. The course description manages to exclude any reference to Palestinians, implicitly demonizing their struggle for liberation.
But Hillel International turns the tables on Palestinian students. With the help of this organization, the Palestinian story, their Nakba and ongoing dispossession at the hands of the Jewish state, is portrayed as a threat to Jewish students’ wellbeing on campus, thus making Jewish students feel unsafe and uncomfortable even in history classes, with the result that Palestinian students’ speech and very identity have been turned into an “uncivil” affair on campus:
Hillel seeks to facilitate civil discourse about Israel in a safe and supportive college environment that is fertile for dialogue and learning.
The above has caused antagonistic clashes on campus between Hillel students and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) such as the following incident at Stony Brook University in May 2018, narrated from the point of view of “civil discourse” about Israel:
SJP appeared to double-down on its position, calling Hillel a “Zionist organization” that exists for “the expressive purpose to propagandize young Jews into support the state [of Israel].”
“SJP’s position” is nothing more nor less than what Hillel stands for publicly. Palestinian students’ identity, their demands for justice, are often seen as a threat to Jewish students in the same way as Palestinian demographics (their existence) are seen as a threat to the Jewish state.
Hillel International enforces its Israel Guidelines through the threat of legal action against students who dissent. In 2015, Hillel International forced Swarthmore Hillel to disaffiliate because they hosted an event with Jewish civil rights veterans who made connections between their work in the Jim Crow South and current activism around Israel/Palestine.
Hillel is an international organization. Its mission is the same wherever Hillel may be found today. In 2017, it merged with the David Project,
an agency of Hillel International a Jewish non-profit located in Washington, DC. The David Project’s stated aim is to “empowers student leaders to build mutually beneficial and enduring partnerships with diverse organizations so that the pro-Israel community is integrated and valued on campus.”
As can be seen from the above, Hillel has evolved in spirit to become an extension of AIPAC — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Some Jewish students, however, are seeking to change (or at least expand) the political orientation of Hillel (see Mission and Vision — Open Hillel) described above, as Naomi Dann, explains:
As a Jewish student of Peace and Justice Studies at an American liberal arts college, talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict was inescapable. I struggled against the fact that as a leader of a Jewish community, those I interacted with assumed my full political support for a nation-state that had displaced hundreds of thousands of people and imposed military rule on millions living under occupation. The oppressive policies of that state do not reflect my values, and a Jewish community that silences those of us who speak out for justice does not either.
It is well past due time for the travesty of Israel’s war against the Palestinian people to come to an end (see Is Palestine’s longest-enduring conflict nearing its end?). When Jewish organizations like Hillel cease to be Israel’s agents, only then will we be able to witness an end to this travesty.
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Note: The above was first published on Quora (9 Jan 2019) as my answer to the question: What is the history of the Hillel campus student organization and what role does it play in U.S.-Israeli politics today?
Rima Najjar, retired professor, Al-Quds University, Palestine
