Tikvah on the Finkelstein Event

Tikvah: Students for Israel held a peaceful protest outside the Finkelstein event on Wednesday, October 15, 2008. Many students took part in the protest, which sought to highlight Finkelstein's notoriously dangerous and racist views.

The speaker- Norman Finkelstein- is a vocal and adamant supporter of Hezbollah (considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, and many others). Beyond that, and most hurtfully, he is a Holocaust revisionist. The Washington Post on December 3, 2002 wrote, “Norman Finkelstein [is] a writer celebrated by neo-Nazi groups for his Holocaust revisionism and comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany.”

Following the protest, a group of students (some from Tikvah and others not) decided to speak out within the actual event.

Those who spoke out respect the right of groups to bring speakers of their choosing to campus in the name of free speech and exercised their right to free speech in response.

None of the protesters used any profanity at the event.

Members of my community and I made sure that our voices would not be silenced in the face of these indescribably hurtful messages.

So long as terrorist supporters and Holocaust revisionists like Finkelstein voice their extremism and hatred on this campus, there will be a louder voice in response.

Antisemitic Vandalism at Berkeley

First General Meeting

Come to Tikvah: SFI's first general meeting of the year!
When: Tuesday, September 9 at 8pm
Where: 101 Moffit
What:
- A presentation about our group highlighting events we hosted last year.
- Introductions from the chairs of each of our 8 committees. Learn about different ways you can get more involved in Tikvah.
- Discussion about events we are planning for the upcoming semester. Your input will help to make our group as productive as possible.
- For those interested, sign-ups for committees.

FREE FALAFEL will be served and you will get the chance to meet others interested in advocating for Israel.

Sign up to get a FREE Tikvah T-shirt.

We're looking forward to an exciting year and we hope to see all of you at the meeting!

Good Stuff to Come...

Welcome back to school! We at Tikvah are excited to start a new year of advocating for Israel on campus. We have tons of great events planned and look forward to meeting anyone who is interested in participating in the club. We'll keep you all updated on our schedule for the year. Be sure to come to our first general meeting (time and place TBA) to find out how you can participate. See you soon!

Video of Prager at Cal

In case you are interested in seeing video of Dennis Prager's speech at Cal for Israel's 60th Birthday, follow this link.

Reflection on Yom Ha'atzmaut

We hope that everyone has had a meaningful Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli Memorial Day, and Israeli Independence Day. If you have not already done so today, now would be a good time to take a moment and read Israel's Declaration of Independence, just to remind yourself of the principles on which Israel was founded.

Some Photos from Dennis Prager's Lecture

Dennis Prager's talk yesterday at Dwinelle proved to be a successful start to "Israel at 60 Week." Some 250 people, both students and community members, filled the lecture hall as Prager explained why American universities espouse hatred of Israel, when, by all logic, one would think they would support Israel.

According to Prager, people tend to divide the world into two types; for example, Prager himself has always perceived people to be either "just" or "unjust," and subsequently favors the "just" in any situation. University professors, however, generally seem to have a different classification system, that of the "strong/rich" versus the "weak/poor," and tend to favor the latter category, perceiving the underdog as more exciting and romantic. Up to 1967, Israel had been classified as the underdog and had a romantic image: a country founded as a product of draining swamps, making the desert bloom, escaping the Holocaust and immigrating to Israel on ships.

After 1967, however, when Israel captured the West Bank in a defensive military maneuver, all this changed. Israel came to be seen as "strong" and therefore "bad;" the negative image was only compounded in the eyes of the university as Israel's technological infrastructure improved and Israel started to look more like America, and therefore became boring and unworthy of support. Thus, while the university advocates values like tolerance, equality and compassion and should by all appearances support Israel for being a champion of these values, its tendency to eschew the "just/unjust" classification system has obscured its moral clarity.

May Israel stay strong, stay just, and may university professors realize that it is a society's practice of justice, rather than that society's military capability, socio-economic status, skin-color, or any other criterion, that determines whether that society is good. Stay tuned for other Tikvah events throughout the week.