Linked below is an article by Adam Probolsky in the Orange County Register regarding Jewish life at UC-Irvine.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/jewish-249331-job-students.html
I have to admit that the title of the article ("Jewish life thrives at UC-Irvine" leaves me somewhat confused. Does it really match the text in the article itself?
The below video is from March 2010 when a group of UCI Jewish students appeared before the Student Government.
I am also confused about the remarks of Hillel Executive Director Jordan Fruchtman as related by Mr Probolsky.
"My job and passion is to build Jewish life, but every day I have to answer questions and go to meetings or deal with in some way the anti-Jewish hate that comes from the Muslim students," explained Fruchtman, a redheaded Bay Area native, on a recent morning.
During Israel Apartheid Week (March 10-13), Mr Fruchtman told an associate of mine that "there is no anti-Semitism at UC-Irvine". (I was present.)
So it goes without saying that I am a little confused here.
Somebody help me.
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I don't know if an explanation will help or not but here goes: Jordan Fruchtman is the paid Executive Director of Hillel. Hillel's main function, as he states, is to build Jewish life on campus. Traditionally that means they provide a place where Jewish students away from home can continue to observe Jewish customs, like Shabbot meals, prayer services if they want, and community with other Jewish students ...things like that. It is annoying and upsetting to him that he can't do that as well as he would like because he has to deal so much with the anti-Semitism of the MSU and the administration's unwillingness to do anything about it. That part is fair enough.
The part that is not on the surface is the fact that Hillel is funded by the Jewish Federation, the largest Jewish philanthropic organization in the area. It also has other priorities besides the anti-Semitism at UCI. Nevertheless, the Jewish Community traditionally looks to them to represent their interests. On that aspect, the leadership of the Federation has failed miserably. Their posture over the previous years has been defensive. They maintained that things were not as bad as they appeared and they were working behind the scenes to improve them. They, along with the ADL, and the AJC, etc. feted Michael Drake and gave him honors and did what they could to suck up to him... without any change in the situation.
So they had to buff up the UCI image so that they could defend their failed strategies in past years as well as have Jewish students continue to come to UCI to justify a Hillel office.
In effect, they enabled the UCI administration by not demanding that UCI enforce its own policies. In turn, the UCI administration enabled the MSU by not disciplining it, no matter the violations.
It may be changing now as UCI has gotten worse. Other organizations are taking leadership roles and the Federation is losing support.
The Federation's "working behind the scenes" led to a situation whereby the MSU felt it could simply lie on its Event Application and hold a large fund raiser on campus as they did for the Galloway event. UCI's own chief judicial officer did nothing about the Code violations and further covered it up in his after event report to the Dean of Students. The university announced it was going to "investigate" and nothing has happened in over a year. They did nothing about the MSU or its own systemic failures. The cover-up continues to this day.
The MSU was emboldened a few months later to coordinate an attempt to shout down the Israeli Ambassador during his address on campus. Despite UCI's assertion that they would discipline someone... nothing has happened. They don't even contemplate suspending the MSU itself even though dispositive email evidence has surfaced that show it was planned in advance with further instructions to deny the organization's involvement.
So now (Thank you, Chancellor Drake) the precedent at UCI is set. The Heckler's Veto is operative. For now it is only if the subject is related to Israel but it may extend to campus worker rights and then to whatever the MSU decides they want to shut down.
That's pretty much how we got to this point. If anything, it is a lesson in how appeasement and accommodation doesn't work and how failure to consider consequences leads to the worst conclusions.
Siarlys,
You left out certain references to Jews in the Koran and the hadith. As for Jews under past Islamic rule, there were times when they lived better than Jews under Christians in Europe-that is true, but it was a dhimmi status.
To many Muslims that dhimmi status still has legitimacy in their vision of a future world. To use an anecdote, a Palestinian recently recited the whole process to a Jewish friend of mine.
1 Invitation to convert
2 Accept dhimmi status-pay tax
3 be prepared to fight
It is still being preached today.
Who is Benny Morris, and why should I care what he's cobbled together? I could go ask someone on the corner bus stop their opinion too, and if I had a video camera, post it on YouTube.
The initial Muslim conquest did not come with any invitation to convert. Many of the subject peoples transferred from the Byzantine Empire to the Caliphate implored for the right to convert, because it was indeed the path to full citizenship. At first, the Arabs were loath to share Islam, which they regarded as the faith of the Arabs.
There are references in the Qu'ran to conflicts with the Jewish tribes of Khaybar. These were political in nature. One of the differences between Islam and Christianity is indeed that Muhammed, ostracized and driven out from his native city and tribe, became a political leader of a rival city while developing his spiritual revelations. However, he died before any significant conquests, so nobody knows what he would have done when the Jewish population around Jerusalem avidly offered their assistance.
Yes, all the bombastic notions you cite are trumpeted in the name of Islam. There are also "Dominion" theologies in Christianity, and even some Orthodox Jews expect to be accepted and respected as the priesthood of the world someday. Jews are exceedingly patient about it, waiting for God to act in his own good time. Christians, fortunately, are more given to rhetoric than to armed action. Those Muslims who pursue such nightmarish dreams are indeed more active, but they are not typical of Islam, and their noses need to be rubbed in aspects of their own faith's history that they conveniently overlook. Conceding their warped point that their ideology IS the essence of Islam simply hands over one billion plus people to their tender leadership.
Bennie Morris is an Israeli historian who has written several books on the Israel-Arab wars.
Khaybar was an Jewish oasis in the Arabian desert which surrendered to Mohammed's army.
Today, you can hear radical Muslims chanting, "Khaybar, Khaybar ah Yahud" a reminder to Jews that the army of Mohammed is returning.
Mohammed went from being just a preacher to a military leader spreading Islam by the sword.
Mohammed went from being just a preacher to a military leader spreading Islam by the sword.
Gary, how exactly did you think that Christianity spread? When Jesus was around, it was just a small group of Jews. Paul got it going a bit further, but the ball didn't really start rolling until the Romans adopted it as the official religion.
Trust me, you have some ancestors who believed in either the Celtic or Germanic pantheons before some Christian with a sword convinced them otherwise.
Lance,
To be honest, I am not too concerned about how God slew the tens of thousands of people who got in the way of Moses. I am not too concerned about the Crusades because it has no connection to the present day-at least as far as Christians are concerned.
The Inquisition was an atrocity, but there is no Inquisition today.
Unfortunately, the militancy of Islam as expressed in the later suras and the hadith have relevance to today because millions still buy into it. So the military origins of Islam are still relevant today.
I was only referring to this whole notion that Islam was "spread by the sword" as if it's somehow unique in that regard. I wasn't talking about the Crusades, Inquisition, etcetera.
UCI Professor Mark Levine calls out Malik Ali's gross exaggerations an obstacle for dialogue.
http://tinyurl.com/35lrmxq
- wejomerv
Wejomerv,
Surprisingly to the center for Mark. Realistically, it would be very hard to DEFEND Ali after his statements two weeks ago.
The Oasis of Medina was home to a number of Jewish Arabic tribes, which had been joined by a number of pagan Arab tribes, all of whom asked Muhammed to come be a sort of political judge of local conflicts. This provided a plausible refuge for Muhammed, but also provoked military conflict with the Meccans. As this conflict developed, the Jewish tribes in particular were loath to abandon lucrative trade with Mecca on Muhammed's account. There was a series of quarrels, the pagan tribes of Medina, many of whom converted to Islam, weren't all that easy to convince either, and in the course of things. Muhammed took some brutal measures against those he considered a potential "fifth column" in the developing war with Mecca.
Khaybar was an oasis that one of the Jewish tribes from Medina found refuge with. More important, the Meccans were looking toward them as allies against Muhammed and the tiny Muslim community. Thus, it was a military target -- not because it was Jewish.
Sad, bloody history, but those who chant about Khaybar, whether Moshe Dayan in 1967, or Muslim jihadists ignorant of their own history, and trying to overlook the next six centuries, all need to have their nose rubbed in the reality behind the convenient stereotypes.
Most Jews in the world had never heard of Khaybar. Muhammed didn't become important until he had conquered Mecca, where his relatives and enemies submitted to Islam, then made sure that they would be the leadership of this new movement, a classic case of, if you can't beat them, join them.
Siarlys,
"Muhammed took some brutal measures against those he considered a potential "fifth column" in the developing war with Mecca."
- Would you like to be more specific?
I thought you knew this history Gary, and we were only sparring over points of emphasis and interpretation. I don't have time to retype all the available references for you, but you might start here:
Lewis, David Levering. God's Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215. W.W. Norton, 2008.
pp. 40-50.
Also reference pp. 76-80 concerning the surrender of Jerusalem, the vicious Byzantine persecution of Jews which made them willing allies of the Muslims, also the internecine battles with Monophysite Christianity, and the settlement which led to surrender of the city.
Incidentally, it is a matter worth noting that when the Crusades arrived in the Holy Land, some 400-500 years after the conquests of the initial Caliphate, nobody, Christian or Jew, much less Muslim, welcomed them as liberators.
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