All's fair in love, war, and in Jewish Voice for Peace fundraising

All 's fair in love, war, and in Jewish Voice for Peace fundraising, apparently.

JVP put a considerable amount of effort lobbying for the defeat of famed civil rights attorney Kenneth Marcus's appointment as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Education.

Ultimately Marcus was confirmed, but JVP still holds a grudge. Enough of a grudge, in fact, to spread this whopper of a lie. Marcus is reopening an investigation regarding a 2011 incident at Rutgers University, in New Jersey.  JVP  falsely claims Marcus has "declared all students who support Palestinian human rights anti-Semitic", and that his motivation in declaring the event anti-Semitic was because  "it included criticism of the Israeli government".

JVP lies.

The Rutgers event,  organized by Sara Kershnar, now legislative assistant to controversial Berkeley City Councilperson Cheryl Davila was well documented at the time.

From the New Jersey Jewish News:
Members of the Jewish community and other pro-Israel supporters complained that organizers initiated an admission fee to the Jan. 29 event — which was advertised as being free — in order to prevent demonstrators from attending....

The estimated 500 students and members of the Jewish community who gathered at the Douglass Campus Center outnumbered the 200 or fewer program attendees. While the program was originally billed as being free and open to the public, organizers decided at the last minute to charge a $5 admission fee, in part, according to a number of Jewish community and Hillel leaders, to discourage the attendance by demonstrators who would hesitate to give money to the organizations that planned the event.

From The Jeruslaem Post:

Around 400 pro-Israel students, as well as Holocaust survivors, say they were barred from a public pro-Palestinian gathering at Rutgers, New Jersey's state university, on Saturday night.

"The event page on Facebook [said] that the event was free and open to the public... [and] a suggested donation of $5-$20 would be asked for at the door," wrote Rutgers News Real blogger Aaron Marcus, who led the Zionist students in protest. "Only after 200- 400 pro-Israel supporters showed up did the event – held in a state school, paid for by both tax dollars and student fees – begin to discriminate who could enter the event free-of-cost."

Rutgers student Binyomin Sheis told The Jerusalem Post, "We came straight from Havdalla [the service marking the end of Shabbat], and hardly any of us had money. However, I saw an older woman give [organizers] five dollars, and they gave her money back."

Sheis added that there was also a physical effort to block the group.

From Aaron Marcus at the NewsRealBlog

Only after 200-400 pro-Israel supporters showed up did the event–held in a state school, paid for by both tax dollars and student fees–begin to discriminate who could enter the event free-of-cost.

First, the organizers of the event asked all of those who gathered together in opposition to the event to stand in a separate line and wait for seating to take place. Meanwhile, those in anti-Israel apparel, keffiyahs and hijabs were taken aside, given green wristbands, labeled as event “staff” and given free entrance. At one point, the hosts of the event, which ranged from groups like the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network to the International Socialist Organization, tore apart a suggested donation sign leaving only the admission fee visible. The group then said students could attend free-of-charge if they became members of BAKA. However, this policy once again did not apply for the Jewish students hoping to attend. In fact, at one point, I signed my name and the woman behind the desk read it and furiously crossed out the information I had just posted.

JVP claims, falsely, that this is a free speech issue.  It is not.   The incident at Rutgers involves differential admission fees based on a religious litmus test.   And that, best beloved, is  discrimination.

Sara Kershnar: Berkeley City Councilperson Cheryl Davila's reprehensible assistant

Controversial Berkeley City Council woman Cheryl Davila has hired Sara Kershnar as her legislative assistant.  If Cheryl had done any vetting or research, she might have learned that Sara had been previously arrested for disrupting a program at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center.

Sara Kershnar at her arrest for disrupting a program at the SF JCC

Sara Kershnar disrupting a program at the SF JCC

Sara Kershnar disrupting a program at the SF JCC

Arrest record of those who disrupted the program at the SF JCC

Berkeley taxpayers, you are now paying this vile woman's salary.

Reem's of Oakland: Photos of attackers emerge

Reem's in Fruitvale has been widely criticized for its lionization of convicted murderer Rasmea Odeh. Yesterday, a non-violent vigil meant to focus community attention on the local cafe's glorification of violence ended in an assault on the participants, including a 78 year old survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto

Lara Kiswani, the Executive Director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) in San Francisco Bay Area has been identified as one of the attackers. She is reported to have ripped a sign out of a participants hands, then strutted around the outside patio with the remnants.

Ellen Brotsky, a self identified member of Jewish Voice for Peace can also been seen on the footage attacking the non-violent protesters

Ellen Brotsky and Lara Kiswani  with stolen signs

This person  was reported to have assaulted a wheel-chair bound activist, cruelly twisting her fingers in an effort to steal her sign. 

Sara Kershnar of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) also made an appearance, participating in the mayhem until the police arrived, then tossing on a lime green National lawyers Guild Legal Observer hat.  (Pssst, Sara- the National Lawyers Guild Manual for Legal Observers specifically says  "...we ask people to commit themselves to act as Legal Observers and not protesters, and avoid blurring of lines between Legal Observer and activist.")

Oops. Fail.

As morally reprehensible as it might be, Reem Assil and her customers have the right to glorify a murderer, but they do not have the right to attack those in opposition. Organizers of the vigil are planning on returning to Fruitvale Station, committed to the sacred task of educating the community about the dangers of incitement and indoctrination and how they act as an obstacle to peace, both in Oakland and overseas.

These are just empty words from an interview with Reem Assil in Berkeleyside:  “People are afraid of politics, but now more than ever people are asking. If my food can stir up a conversation — even if it’s a hard conversation — that’s what I want it to do. I welcome that in my space.”  Yet when people attempting to engage in the very hard conversation Reem says she welcomes- they are met with abuse, harassment and assault.

The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network: Beyond Chutzpah

Like many anti-Israel groups the International Jewish Anti-Zionist network is little more than a website and an email list, providing anonymity and a "Jewish" cover to their actual financiers and handlers. In the case of the IJAN, their primary purpose appears to be "Jew-washing" events that cross the line into anti-Semitism. Yes, as hard to imagine as it might be- there are events that even Jewish voice for Peace won't touch. Locally, the IJAN works closely with the Arab Resource Organizing Center and uses their facilities to host events. The IJAN has co-sponsored a talk accusing Israel of deliberately irradiating Mizrachi refugees. They have hosted notorious anti-Semite and Global march to Jerusalem organizer Feroze Mithaborwala. Most recently the IJAN recently paraded Hajo Meyer, a long time anti-Israel activist and Holocaust survivor on a widely discredited 12 city tour "Never again is for Everyone"

Hajo Meyer carries the endorsement of ex-KKK leader David Duke, and Hatem Bazian, a UC Berkeley faculty member with a lengthy resume of anti-Israel activities. At the IJAN sponsored tour at Rutgers University New Jersey, event organizers led by Sara Kershnar (Shown below, shortly before her arrest for interrupting a talk at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center) suddenly instituted an admission fee (in violation of university policy) to discourage Jewish pro-Israel students from entering the event.



At the IJAN "Never again" talk at DePaul University in Chicago , attendees reported:

"The organizers created an intimidating atmosphere. One attendee likened it to a Ku Klux Klan rally. No audience members were allowed to record, film, or photograph the speakers. Members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which sponsored the event, patrolled the aisles looking for “contraband” recording devices. This created a tense atmosphere, which one audience member described as fascist."

"The speakers vilified current peace efforts and praised the terrorist group Hamas. They repeatedly attacked the moderate Palestinian Authority for “collaborating” with Israel by engaging in peace talks and extolled Hamas as “the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people." They attacked Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, with Bazian claiming that the treaties were simply an Israeli plot to “extend its strategic borders all the way up to Iraq.”"

"Hajo Meyer made the Nazi-Israeli equation more explicit. Exploiting his status as a Holocaust survivor, he compared IDF soldiers to Auschwitz guards. He denigrated Jews and Judaism. “The Jewish people are not a civilization,” he charged. The only religion that pro-Israel Jews share is the Holocaust religion. . . . They cannot claim they are Jewish, so therefore they had to invent the Holocaust religion, that is, with its high priest Elie Wiesel,” he said.

From the ADL:
"The tour is the latest effort by anti-Israel activists to exploit the sacred memory of the Holocaust for the purpose of painting its victim, the Jewish people, as the "new" oppressor in the form of Israel. Anti-Israel activists have regularly used Holocaust language to demonize and vilify Israel, including referring to Israeli soldiers as Nazis and comparing Israel's blockade of Gaza to a "concentration camp" or "ghetto."

Exploiting the holocaust? Why would anything from the IJAN surprise us?

From their website:

We pledge to: Oppose Zionism and the State of Israel

Zionism is racist. It demands political, legal and economic power for Jews and European people and cultures over indigenous people and cultures. Zionism is not just racist but anti-Semitic. It endorses the sexist European anti-Semitic imagery of the effeminate and weak “diaspora Jew” and counters it with a violent and militarist “new Jew,” one who is a perpetrator rather than a victim of racialized violence. Zionism thus seeks to make Jews white through the adopting of white racism against Palestinian people…

And now in an act of staggering and mind-blowing hubris, those nefarious holocaust exploiters at the International Jewish Anti-Zionist network, are, wait for it... accusing The Horowitz Freedom center of exploiting the Holocaust.

The story:

The David Horowitz Freedom Center paid for a full page advertisement in the New York Times on April 24 of this year



The ad begins:

"The Holocaust began with Boycotts of Jewish stores and ended with death camps. The calls for a new Holocaust can be heard throughout the Middle east and in Europe as well. In the wake of the murders of a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse, it is time for supporters of the boycott, divestment and Sanction Israel Movement (BDS) to ask themselves what they did to contribute to the atmosphere of hate that spawned these and the murder of Jews"

And the IJAN responds (accompanied by a ubiquitous petition and request for money):
Take Action against Slander and Misuse of the Nazi Holocaust

"On April 24th, the New York Times published a dangerous and slanderous ad paid for by the David Horowitz Freedom Foundation. The ad invokes the Nazi holocaust in order to attack supporters of BDS including several professors (see William Thompson’s powerful response here). It is incumbent upon Jews of conscience and others who share our commitment to justice to speak out in defense of those who bravely promote justice for Palestinians and against the egregious misuse of the legacy of the holocaust."

The IJAN - a group that paraded a decrepit anti-Israel activist though 12 cities to exploit his status as a holocaust survivor is complaining about the "misuse of the Holocaust" It is, to paraphrase Norman Finklestein "Beyond Chutzpah"