Since the existence of the earliest Jewish diaspora over 2000 years ago, Jews aspired and in many cases succeeded to return to the "Land of Israel." As old as the diaspora itself are those who sought to deny Jews their right to visit and live in Israel.
In 1999, Birthright was created to help connect young Jews to their ancestry by organizing Jewish heritage trips to Israel. Leading opponents of the right of Jews to connect to their homeland include American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. So it is no surprise that these groups are staunch adversaries of the Birthright heritage trip.
BIRTHRIGHT UNDER FIRE - A TIMELINE
Dec 2012 - SJP at Tufts University (Tufts) published a “Zine” dedicated to demonizing Birthright and disconnecting Jews from their heritage.
Jan 2014 - Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, gave a speech at the University of Michigan Law School in which he stated: “The entire myth of Zionism is that the same people were expelled 2000 years ago have a right to go home today.”
Mar 2014 - Tufts SJP members exhorted Jewish students to not participate on Birthright trips.
Sep 2014 - Loyola SJP members disrupted a Birthright campus event by forming a human wall in a reported attempt to block Hillel’s tabling to advertise the trip. SJP members reportedly accosted Hillel students with “a variety of insults,” asking: "How does it feel to be an occupier?" and "How does it feel to be guilty of ethnic cleansing?"
Feb 2015 - UMN SJP launched an anti-Birthright campaign on campus.
Mar 2015 - Tufts SJP and JVP member, Julia Mason Wedgle, co-wrote an op-ed calling on other students to “question Birthright” and reject the trip.
Sep 2015 - SJP of University of Southern Florida protested Birthright tabling on their campus.
Apr 2016 - Tufts SJP shared an online zine on Facebook targeting Jewish students considering going on Birthright trips.
Nov 2016 - SJP FIU hosted an event called “Deconstructing Birthright” in which a “heavy emphasis” was placed on examining Birthright’s “history, methods, and effects” on the “Israeli occupation.”
Jul 2017 - Dr. Hatem Bazian, founder of AMP and SJP, tweeted: “Sorry American Jews, you don’t have a birthright.”
Sep 2017 - JVP issued its #ReturntheBirthright (RTB) campaign manifesto, calling on American Jews to boycott Birthright.
Oct 2017 - National SJP (NSJP) held a workshop during their 2017 conference titled “Countering Birthright and Other Israel Trips on Campus.” During the workshop, NSJP promoted RTB and posed questions such as “what it would take to get our university to ban these trips, or to convince students to boycott them?”
Dec 2017 - Two NYU SJP Members, Khalid Abudawas and Leen Dweik, spoke out against Birthright during an RTB protest.
Mar 2018 - “Jewish students of Smith SJP” tabled for RTB and call on Jewish students to sign a pledge to boycott Birthright.
Mar 2018 - Tufts JVP tabled for a boycott of Birthright trips while urging other Jewish students to join the RTB campaign.
Apr 2018 - UMass Amherst SJP posted a satirical article implying Israel randomly murders innocent Palestinians and with it, the SJP chapter urged Jewish students to boycott Birthright.
Apr 2018 - JVP’s RTB campaign protests the Birthright Gala.
Jun 2018 - INN officially launches its “Not Just a Free Trip” Campaign, declaring “we can no longer allow a free trip that hides the truth about the Occupation be synonymous with being a young Jewish person in America.”
Jul 2018 - 8 Birthright participants affiliated with INN staged a “walk-off” of their birthright trips.
Jul 2018 - SJP UIUC praised the INN Birthright “Walk-offs,” posting on Facebook that “This is what true allyship looks like. #ReturnTheBirthright.”
Jul 2018 - AMP Missouri praised INN activists for staging Birthright “Walk-offs” and hosts the activists live on their Facebook feed.
Return The Birthright Campaign
JVP’s Return The Birthright (RTB) campaign seeks to disconnect Jews from their ancient homeland. By delegitimizing Birthright and the importance of Israel in Judaism, JVP has attempted to reclaim what it means to be Jewish for the rest of American Jewry.
JVP member, Jennifer Neuman, echoes this sentiment in her blog titled, “Return the birthright,” writing: “my family arrived in New York generations ago, and never left. We love it here. We also have no relatives in Israel, or other ties to the land beyond being Jewish.”
On JVP’s website the group exhorts Jewish American philanthropists to only “support Jewish life in America, including Jewish communities that have a critical orientation to Israel, or no orientation at all.”
Taglit-Birthright is a hugely successful program that builds a deep connection to Israel for those who take these trips. In nearly 20 years, the program has brought more than 600,000 Jewish young adults to Israel. It is because of these accomplishments that BDS, AMP, SJP, JVP, and INN have been targeting Birthright so heavily.
By delegitimizing Birthright and the importance of Israel in Judaism, JVP is attempting to redefine what it means to be Jewish — not only for themselves, but for the rest of American Jewry.
Stay tuned this week! Every day Canary Mission will expose another aspect of JVP’s activities, proving that they truly are not for “Peace.”
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