Anti-Israel student group distributes mock eviction notices at NYU
(JNS.org) The anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) distributed mock eviction to up to 2,000 students at New York University, claiming its notices mimic those that the Israel Defense Forces hands out in advance of home evictions of Palestinians.
“We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in three days,” read the SJP notices, the New York Daily News reported.
“If you do not vacate the premise by midnight on 25 April, 2014, we reserve the right to destroy all remaining belongings,” the notices added. “Charges for demolition will be applied to your student accounts.”
The Anti-Defamation League said the notices “inaccurately alleged that Palestinians in the West Bank are evicted from their homes ‘for no other reason than their ethnicity’ when in fact the Israel Defense Forces conduct evictions when there are serious security concerns and when homes are built illegally.”
Last month, Boston-based Northeastern University’s ban of SJP was triggered by the placement of similar mock eviction notices. But the group has now been reinstated by the school, according to a letter posted on SJP’s website.
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Israel divestment votes at California schools garner mixed results
(JNS.org) Resolutions to divest from Israel were resoundingly defeated in votes by the student governments of two California state schools, but a divestment measure was passed at one school, following marathon debates that lasted into the early hours of Thursday morning.
On Wednesday night, a divestment resolution against companies doing business in Israel was defeated by a vote of 16-3 with three abstentions at San Diego State University. Early on Thursday morning, after nearly eight hours of debate, a similar divestment resolution was defeated 16-8 at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
But the student government at nearby University of California, Riverside narrowly voted in favor of an Israel divestment resolution, 8-7, following another long debate that ended at 2 a.m.
In a statement, the pro-Israel group StandWithUs praised students on all three campuses who “worked hard to inform their governments about the misinformation and underlying malicious intent” of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, which “seeks to delegitimize and demonize the world’s only Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East.”
“We are heartened to see that the student governments were not misled by this deceptive campaign and voted responsibly,” StandWithUs said.
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Spanish town mulls changing ‘Kill Jews’ name
(JNS.org) The small Spanish village of Castrillo Matajudios will hold a referendum on whether or not it should change the second part of its name, which means “Kill Jews.” On May 25, the village’s 56 registered voters will be asked whether the name should be kept or revised to an earlier, less offensive version.
The second part of the town’s name was originally “Motajudios,” which means “Jews Hill.” That name dates back to 1035, when Jews who escaped being killed at another nearby town settled on the town’s hill. Records from 1627 show that the name was then changed to “Kill Jews,” more than a century after the Spanish Inquisition, which forced Jews to convert to Catholicism or face either execution or expulsion.
Some researchers actually believe that the town’s new name was invented by Jewish converts to Catholicism who wanted to make it seem that they opposed people who tried to maintain their Jewish faith. Others think the new name was simply a misspelling. The town’s official shield includes the Star of David.
“There are always the stories of people from here traveling to Israel with a passport that says ‘Matajudios’ and wishing they didn’t have to show it,” said the town’s mayor, Lorenzo Rodriguez Perez, the Associated Press reported.
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Controversy erupts over Nakba ceremony request at Galilee forest
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Moti Dotan, the head of Israel’s Lower Galilee Regional Council, and the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced Persons in Israel are at loggerheads over the latter’s request to hold a Nakba Day procession in the Lavi Forest on Israeli Independence Day.
The quarrel began when the association recently sent a letter to Dotan stating it had sent a request to Tiberias police, asking permission to hold a procession commemorating the “Nakba”—meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, and a term Arabs use to denote their displacement following the 1948 war—in the heart of the Lavi Forest, which is located between Haifa and the Sea of Galilee.
Dotan responded to the group by saying he was vehemently opposed to a Nakba ceremony on Independence Day.
“Holding a gathering and procession of this kind presents the opportunity for a violent confrontation between thousands of revelers—something which the regional council cannot allow,” he said.
Dotan warned Northern District commander Maj. Gen. Zohar Dvir against the potentially explosive situation posed by the meeting between thousands of Israelis and Arab demonstrators.
“The police must prevent this event as is the case elsewhere—such as the interdiction against Jewish entry to the Temple Mount or informing the public not to ride on Route 65 because of the Arab demonstration over the torching of a mosque in Umm al-Fahm. I am absolutely certain that full discretion will be used to prevent a violent confrontation, which no doubt will occur if the event is held on Independence Day,” Dotan wrote to Dvir.
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