Portside

Reader Comments: Graduation 2024; College Presidents Cave to GOP in Congress; Why University Divestment Matters; We Need “Outside Agitators”; Diary of a Palestinian Living in Israel; Lots of Announcements; Cartoons; more.....

The distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is quite simple, and the protesting students recognise it.

In a matter of days, dozens of Gaza solidarity encampments have sprung up on over a hundred university campuses across the U.S. It’s the biggest student movement since the anti-war protests that swept U.S. universities in the 1960s.

The protesters, are mostly undergraduate women, along with a smaller number of undergraduate men, 18 to 20 years old, standing up for what they have a right to stand up for: their beliefs. The encampment was blocking nobody’s way....

Reader Comments: UAW's Sean Fain in Solidarity with Students; Letter to Columbia President Shafik; Students need our support now; Anti-Zionism in the Jewish Community; Research Tools for Organizers; Setting a Larger Table - Religion & Socialism; more

We must demonstrate that one can leave Zionism and still be part of a Jewish community that lives its traditions, its values, and – if so inclined – its spiritual life with vitality and integrity.

This should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all.

After reading of actions at UC Berkeley to prevent a speaker from addressing a meeting, and disrupting a dean’s backyard party, as a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, the first thing that comes to my mind is "What was the goal of the protest?"

For the last decade or so, an ideological tremor has been unsettling American Jewish life. Since Oct. 7, it has become an earthquake. It concerns the relationship between liberalism and Zionism....