I remember how it was -- JR
Harvard: Another Anti-Semite on the Way
Harvard has an anti-Semitism problem, as do many of the Ivy League schools. One would think perhaps it had learned its lesson after the disgraceful conduct of former President Claudine Gay at a congressional hearing regarding anti-Semitism on campus, but no.
Harvard decided for its next trick that it’s going to appoint Derek Penslar, a professor of Jewish history, as co-chair for its anti-Semitism task force. This task force is also supposed to address instances of so-called Islamophobia, which is ridiculous on its face, as it’s not the Muslim students who are facing calls for the genocide of their people.
Penslar is an expert in modern Jewish history. According to his Harvard biography, he “takes a comparative and transnational approach to modern Jewish history, which he studies within the contexts of modern nationalism, capitalism, and colonialism.” In other words, he looks at Israel through the eyes of a modern leftist whose worldview is centered on a DEI model. From what can be gleaned from his books and works, the tone and tenor are very anti-Israel and frankly anti-Jew.
Penslar has underlined this tendency in recent years through his actions and commentary. He signed an open letter entitled “The Elephant in the Room” that has several troubling aspects to it. First, it claims that “there cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid.” Then it states, “As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it.”
So Palestinians have no responsibility for the economic and political state of their own country, according to these esteemed academics? And Heaven forbid Israel turn toward a more right-wing approach to governing.
Then there are Penslar’s personal writings. In his book Zionism: An Emotional State, he claims that the “veins of hatred run through Jewish civilization.” The context for this particular comment had to do with the biblical claims of the Jews. Reminder: Jews are the indigenous people of Israel.
Penslar was also one of the Harvard faculty who rallied around Gay after her lapse of good leadership during the infamous congressional hearing and, in doing so, tried to minimize the growing and pervasive anti-Semitism on campus.
Penslar is not a reasonable choice to chair this task force, as his own sentiments seem to skew anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, Harvard students returning from Christmas break were greeted with more grotesque anti-Israel and anti-Jew hate on campus. Posters of the Jewish hostages taken on October 7 had been posted around campus. However, after the break, those posters were covered in anti-Jew slurs. The defilers blamed Israelis for 9/11, called the posters of hostages a lie, and otherwise defaced them.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a returning student, filmed the evidence and stated, “I am a visibly Jewish student, and when Jewish students say they don’t feel safe, let alone welcomed, it’s because of actions like this, and we have no faith that Harvard will do anything to stop it.”
Harvard supposedly has some of the brightest minds working there. Surely they knew that being under the microscope of public scrutiny thanks to the Claudine Gay scandal, their continued missteps in this direction would be detected. It really seems like a “screw you” not only to their Jewish students but to the public at large. Harvard is a disgrace.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/103868
****************************************NJ school district blasted for partnering with controversial CAIR group
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is blasting a New Jersey school district for partnering up with the local branch of a controversial American-Islamic advocacy organization CAIR — calling the move “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Teaneck Public Schools Superintendent Andre Spencer, who endorsed a polarizing Nov. 29 walkout in support of the group, hailed the partnership as part of a new “Togetherness and Belonging program” in Teaneck schools in a letter to community members obtained by The Post.
In the December letter, Spencer described the program as a way to “improve the dialogue within our scholastic community and bolster respect for and appreciation of our diverse population.”
Spencer went on to note the “expansion of these programs with organizations like CAIR-NJ to provide education sessions on a variety of local and global issues.”
The program will also be run in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League and Facing History and Ourselves.
A letter from Gottheimer obtained by The Post slammed Spencer’s decision, highlighting that CAIR has “openly praised Hamas terrorists” after their brutal attack on Israel Oct. 7.”
“It is outrageous and unacceptable to welcome CAIR-NJ into Teaneck’s schools to promote ‘togetherness and belonging’ after its national executive director [Nihad Awad] openly expressed glorification about the vile terrorist attacks and sexual violence perpetrated against innocent Americans, Israelis, and others,” Gottheimer said.
Gottheimer said the organization should not be afforded a pulpit to “promote antisemitism and hatred as part of the Teaneck’s curriculum.
“As Superintendent, you have a duty to protect Teaneck students of all backgrounds. Inviting CAIR-NJ to your schools puts the safety of Jewish students at risk,” he added.
In a statement to The Post, a CAIR-NJ spokesperson said Awad’s words “were taken out of context and have been interpreted in bad faith.”
The organization also hit out at Gottheimer for some of his own past statements, claiming they put Muslim students across the state — some of them minors — “in direct harm’s way.”
“The Congressman accused minor students at Teaneck High School of antisemitism simply because they saw Muslims like themselves being killed in Palestine, and walked out of school in protest — with the permission and support of Dr. Andre Spencer,” the spokesperson wrote.
The advocacy group went on to note that they’ve received 157 reports of anti-Muslim bigotry between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31 of last year, compared to 152 in all of 2022.
“The Congressman’s accusations against CAIR are defamatory and untrue in nature. CAIR and its chapters — including New Jersey — have a strong track record of condemning antisemitism. We have consistently made clear that our critique is of Israel as a nation state and not of Jews.”
In November about 100 students at Teaneck High School staged a walkout in support of the partnership with Spencer’s blessing, despite complaints from local Jewish organizations.
The school district has since been added to the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights list of open Title VI Shared Ancestry Investigations of Institutions of Higher Education and K-12 schools on Jan. 5 for “possible discrimination based on race, color or national origin.”
Spencer’s statements and the board of education’s subsequent handling of public speakers on the subject at its meetings has been called into question as a result.
Deborah Blaiberg, a Jewish mother of four who has been a Teaneck resident since 2008, said when posts about the walkout circulated she felt forced to keep her children home after receiving “little to no response from the school” about the handling of her children’s’ safety.
After Spencer’s letter to the Teaneck community went out, Blaiberg said the decision to partner with CAIR-NJ was not discussed with parents ahead of the program’s launch.
“It’s an absolute disgrace. If you speak to any Jewish parent, well, you might as well have slapped us in the face, it’s so disrespectful,” she said noting her understanding of the organization’s comments regarding Hamas.
Teaneck has historically been a town with a strong black and Jewish connection, which has been strained by months of divisiveness.
There has been an increase in bias crimes against Jewish people in the community and the rally has been viewed as a possible breaking point, with Blaiberg commenting it feels as though the Jewish community has been muzzled.”
Awad’s latest controversial statements came in November, when the group’s co-founder said, “the people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7. And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their land that they were not free to walk in.”
The White House later condemned Awad’s comments as “shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.” Awad has stressed the comments were taken out of context.
CAIR has long been a controversial player in Washington, presenting itself as a champion of civil rights for Muslims in an era of Islamophobia, yet has been regularly pilloried as an apologist for extremism.
Awad, a Palestinian American, and his group have been accused of past sympathy for Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.
In 1994 Awad said he was “in support of the Hamas movement” later, in 2006 backtracking and saying “I don’t support Hamas today” with CAIR denying any ties to the group or support of terrorism.
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Australia: International student visa numbers fall amid migration squeeze
The number of international student visa holders approved to come to Australia is on track to plummet by more than 90,000 this financial year, as the federal government rejects an increasing number of applicants to curb the high levels of temporary migration.
The number of visas granted to offshore students dropped to 139,132 in the first half of the financial year, figures from the Department of Home Affairs reveal, with nearly 20 per cent of all applicants rejected. If the approval rate continues 91,715 fewer overseas students will arrive in 2023-24 compared with the past year.
International Education Association of Australia CEO Phil Honeywood said the figures were part of the government crackdown on giving visas to applicants who were more interested in work rights than study, which the government refers to as “non-genuine students”.
“The focus has been on winding back a large number of diploma-level vocational students doing courses such as diploma of leadership, and instead the primary focus is on students who can add skills to the Australian economy,” he said.
The total number of student visas approved – including for non-residents already in Australia – was 195,934, which is also on track to fall below the record 577,295 visas granted in 2022-23.
The change in the numbers is being driven by the number of rejected applicants, with 81 per cent of student visa requests being granted in the past six months.
This is down from 86 per cent of applicants being approved in 2022-23, 91.5 per cent in 2021-22 and 89.9 per cent in the pre-Covid year of 2018-19.
A Department of Home Affairs spokeswoman said visa approvals needed to be “balanced against upholding the integrity of the student visa program”.
“The department has seen increasing levels of integrity concerns across the student visa program,” she said.
“The department received higher levels of fraudulent documents, fraud related to English language testing, non-genuine claims and non-genuine subsequent marriages being presented in student visa applications.
“The department will refuse a visa application to non-genuine applicants who do not meet regulatory requirements and where fraud is present.”
Education Minister Jason Clare said Labor was committed to improving the standing of the nation’s higher education sector and combating exploitation.
“The Albanese government’s migration strategy and the other integrity measures we’ve put in place send a clear message that we will act to prevent the exploitation of students and protect Australia’s reputation as a high-quality international education provider,” he said.
A global push is under way to limit student migration, with Canada seeking to curb its numbers by announcing a two-year cap on foreign students that will cut numbers by 35 per cent, and Britain barring foreign students from bringing dependants.
Migration expert and former immigration department official Abul Rizvi said the decline in student visa approvals reflected a bid from the government to lower net migration and ease the pressure on infrastructure and the housing market.
“The reason I think the government is targeting students right now is to get net migration down to a more sustainable level,” he said. “And in our history, whenever net migration has hit or approached around 300,000, problems have occurred in terms of congestion, inadequate infrastructure and housing, but also many government services start to strain at that level of net migration.
“And of course last year, we hit over 500,000, which is the highest in our history and not surprisingly, all of those things are under strain as a result.”
Mr Rizvi said the Australian, Canadian and British governments’ different approaches to bringing down student numbers were all poorly designed, arguing that the Albanese government’s strategy of upping refusals wasted resources. “Australia’s approach has been to crank refusal rates,” he said. “I personally think all three countries have got it wrong; they’re just doing it badly.
“Not letting dependants come is poor practice, student visa capping in an arbitrary way and it’s also chaotic … and Australia’s approach is subjective refusal rates.
“That’s not very good either, it’s just a waste of resources.”
Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan has accused Labor of pursuing a “Big Australia policy” and allowing a record intake of international students to help “drive overseas migration to a record 518,000 people as Australians endured housing shortages, rent hikes, and a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by population growth”.
“Labor says they’re not running a Big Australia policy but they also said they would deliver the stage 3 tax cuts,” he said.
The rate of visas being granted to international students in the university education sector alone dropped to 82.5 per cent since July, from 87.5 per cent in 2022-23 and 96 per cent in 2021-22.
In the past six months 98,198 student visas have been granted for study in the higher education sector showing a trend downwards from 2022-23 when 261,317 visas were granted through the course of the year, the highest in more than a decade.
While the rate of overseas Chinese university students being granted visas offshore remained steady at about 97 per cent, grant rates for offshore higher education students from India, Australia’s second-biggest market, dropped from 74.2 per cent in 2022-23 to 60.8 per cent this financial year. Grant rates for the third-biggest market, Nepal, went from 65.2 per cent to 48.8 per cent in the same period.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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