Hillel’s Empty Words
In recent years, we have seen Palestine activists protest Hillel groups on campus.
Pro-Israel organizations and pundits often insist that protesting the largest Jewish student organization somehow makes the Palestine movement antisemitic, but Hillel is not exactly apolitical.
In the mid-2000s, they embraced the slogan “Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel,” they sponsor the Birthright program, and they forbid campus Hillels from partnering with anti-Zionist groups.
Earlier this year, Yale Hillel hosted former Israeli solider and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, which inevitably led to protest. At an event at Harvard Business School later he joked that he would give exploding pagers to protestors, alluding to the Israeli attack on Lebanon that killed dozens of people and injured thousands.