Hannah Friedstein
Overview
Hannah Friedstein was the founder and vice presidentof Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at University of Massachusetts-Amherst (UMass) in 2013. She has advocated for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campus and is affiliated with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).In 2014, Friedstein demonized the Birthright Jewish heritage tour (Birthright).
As of October 2018, Friedstein’s LinkedIn page said she graduated from UMass in 2014 with a degree in Communications and Societal Marketing and was working as a Client Success Manager at NinthDecimal.
Anti-Israel Activism
Friedstein indicated that she “went” to an October 7, 2014 event hosted by JVP- New York City called: “Protest Friends of the Israel Defense Forces at Tel Aviv Macabi [sic] game.”The Facebook event page alleged that the Friends of the IDF organization “fundraises for a foreign military complicit in ... a war of destruction against the Palestinian people” and accused the IDF of “war crimes.” It also claimed that “Macabi [sic] Tel Aviv and other Israeli sports teams are consistently deployed around the world in support of the occupation of Palestine.”
Friedstein indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an August 20, 2014 event hosted by NYC Solidarity with Palestine, titled “March for Palestine!” The Facebook event description stated: “We’ve marched, we’ve rallied, we are boycotting and continuing to carry out direct actions and acts of civil disobedience.”
The description continued: “Its [sic] time to bring the war home. It’s time to connect the war waged by Israel in Palestine to the war being waged by the NYPD against people of color...The struggles of the Palestinian people against the murderous state of Israel are inextricably connected to our struggles here at home.”
On May 3, 2014 Friedstein posted to the UMass SJP Facebook page: “Everyone who has the time should definitely check out the mock wall made by Smith Students for Justice in Palestine!! Awesome job guys
.” SJP chapters across the U.S. have assembled “mock apartheid walls” to demonize Israel on college campuses.
On April 30, 2014 Friedstein posted a message in the Facebook group that said: “As an official RSO we now have an official UMass SJP page! Anything SJP related will now take place on this page! Please like and share
”On April 17, 2014, Friedstein co-hosted an event called “Professors Speak: Demystifying Palestinian Struggle and International Resistance Movements.”
According to the Facebook event description, one speaker discussed the “racial element” of Palestinian representation in American media, while another discussed “the fundamental importance of their right of return to Palestinian justice.” The third speaker promoted “the American Studies Association's endorsement of an academic boycott of Israeli institutions.”
The “right of return” is a Palestinian demand discredited as a means to eliminate Israel.
On April 9, 2014, Friedstein posted invitations to the April 17th event on the Facebook pages of the UMass classes of 2014 and 2015.
Friedstein promoted and attended an April 3, 2014 UMass SJP event with Ali Abunimah, founder of the anti-Israel publication Electronic Intifada.
On April 7, 2014 Friedstein updated her Facebook cover photo to a picture of her and fellow SJP members with Abunimah standing behind an SJP sign.
Promoting BDS
On August 22, 2014 Friedstein updated her Facebook cover photo to a picture of a large Palestinian flag hanging on the Manhattan Bridge, with the words “Boycott Divestment Sanctions” printed on the flag. Friedstein captioned the photo: “#NYC2GAZA “#BDSOn April 24, 2014 Friedstein shared a link on the UMass SJP Facebook page to a website called Burstthebubble.org, which is dedicated to boycotting the Israeli ompany Sodastream. Friedstein commented, “Saving money on plastic bottles really is a "STEAL"!
In February 2016, 500 Palestinians whom Sodastream employed lost their jobs when the company moved its factory from the West Bank to southern Israel. The BDS movement took credit for the factory’s relocation.
On March 10, 2014 Friedstein posted an Electronic Intifada article on the UMass SJP Facebook page, titled “This Divestment Bill Hurts My Feelings.” Friedstein commented: “Another example of demystifying what BDS is and WHY we need to support it.”
The article featured a video of anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi reading his piece “This Divestment Bill Hurts My Feelings,” which mocked the distress caused to students by BDS campaigns.
Friedstein promoted and indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a March 7, 2014 Smith College SJP and Smith College JStreet U event, titled: “A Forum on the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement.” The event featured anti-Israel professor Sa’ed Atshan and provided “information about the Academic and Cultural Boycott” of Israel.
Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour
Friedstein was reportedly a participant on a December 2013 Birthright trip to Israel.On October 22, 2014 Friedstein wrote an open letter for her former university’s student publication, The Daily Collegian, titled “What’s behind the curtains on Birthright trips?” In her letter, Friedstein undermined the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, described Israel as “a nation that has disobeyed international law” and declared:“I am not a Zionist. I have no connection to Israel as a Jew.”
Friedstein claimed Zionism’s goal was “ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people” and wrote that Birthright is “a false construction created by those who wish to perpetuate racial exclusivity and ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people.”
Friedstein admitted her “main objective” of applying for Birthright’s free trip to Israel was “to extend my stay and travel to West Bank, Palestinian land currently under Israeli control and authority.”
Return the Birthright Campaign
In September of 2017, JVP issued its #ReturntheBirthright campaign manifesto, calling on American Jews to boycott the Birthright Israel (Birthright) program. Birthright was founded by Jewish philanthropists “in 1999 to address the growing divide between young Diaspora Jewish adults and the land and people of Israel.”After decades of demographic decline in the American Jewish community, Birthright set out “to strengthen Jewish identity, build a lasting bond with the land and people of Israel, and reinforce the solidarity of Jewish people worldwide.” The program offers “the gift of a life-changing, 10-day trip to Israel to young Jewish adults between the ages of 18 and 26.”
JVP’s anti-Birthright campaign was launched precisely to coincide with “the very moment that college students across America are returning to campus and registration for Birthright winter visits are underway.”
The #returnthebirthright manifesto accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and alleged “the modern state of Israel is predicated on the ongoing erasure of Palestinians.”
The text claimed: “We reject the offer of a free trip to a state that does not represent us, a trip that is only ‘free’ because it has been paid for by the dispossession of Palestinians.”
The manifesto concluded: “And as we reject this, we commit to promoting the right to return of Palestinian refugees… Israel is not our Birthright… Return the Birthright.”
On June 22, 2017, just prior to the launch of JVP’s #returnthebirthright campaign, JVP received a $140,00 two-year grant for general support for its operations from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF).
Since 2015, JVP has received $280,000 from RBF, which has a history of supporting anti-Jewish causes, including BDS campaigns and various organizations that promote BDS campaigns throughout the United States.
SJP
SJP is a student organization engaged in anti-Israel activity on North American college and university campuses.
The first chapter of SJP was founded in 2001 at the University of California at Berkeley by Professor Hatem Bazian. Bazian has spread classic anti-Semitism, reportedly promoted religious anti-Semitism and defended the Hamas terror group. In 2004, Bazian called for “intifada” in America.
SJP organizes anti-Israel campaigns, including running annual Israel Apartheid Weeks, often in collaboration with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Muslim Students Association (MSA) campus chapters.
SJP has been a major force in pushing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement on campuses. Chapters have initiated dozens of BDS resolutions in student governments, which have been proposed on or around Jewish holidays, a time when many Jewish students are off-campus.
SJP activists have reportedly physically assaulted, intimidated and harassed Jewish students, disrupted pro-Israel campus events and demonized pro-Israel campus organizations.
Chapters have often endorsed and campaigned for numerous terrorists and whitewashed terrorism.
BDS
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.
One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”
Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”
In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.
BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.
The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.
Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.
BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.
JVP
JVP was founded in Berkeley, California in 1996, as an activist group with an emphasis on the “Jewish tradition” of peace, social justice and human rights. The organization is currently led by Rebecca Vilkomerson and its board members include Israel critics Naomi Klein, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky and Tony Kushner.
JVP, which generally employs civil disobedience tactics to disrupt pro-Israel speakers and events, consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies” highly critical of Israeli policies. A staunch supporter of the BDS movement, JVP claims to aim its campaigns at companies that either support the Israeli military (Hewlett-Packard) or are active in the West Bank (SodaStream).
Although several Jewish groups critical of Israeli policies, like J Street and Partners for a Progressive Israel, make efforts to operate within the mainstream American Jewish community, JVP functions outside. The group is often criticized for serving as a tokenized Jewish voice for the pro-Palestinian camp and is widely regarded as the BDS movement’s “Jewish wing.”
JVP denies the notion of “Jewish peoplehood” and has even gone so far as to refer to its own Ashkenazi (Jews who spent the Diaspora in European countries) leadership as “white supremacy inside of JVP.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has accused JVP of being “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States,” and said the group “exploits Jewish culture and rituals to reassure its own supporters that opposition to Israel not only does not contradict, but is actually consistent with, Jewish value.”
The ADL also claimed that “JVP consistently co-sponsors rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
According to the ADL website, JVP “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”
Social Media and Weblinks
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/1548458444Twitter:https://twitter.com/h_friedstein
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-friedstein-5387654b
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannahracco/ [Private]
