Noah Byck Mlyn

Noah Byck Mlyn is an activist within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and as of March 2019, called himself a “proud member” of the Brown Divest Coalition, at Brown University (Brown). 

Mlyn was a member of the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as of 2017 and was a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Vassar College (Vassar) in 2016.

Mlyn opposed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA), a bipartisan bill drafted in response to growing anti-Semitism in the United States.

Mlyn has also condemned the Birthright Jewish heritage tour program and promoted JVP’s #returnthebirthright initiative.

As of August 2019, Mlyn was a member of the Facebook group, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), which he joined in March 2016.

In 2016, Mlyn transferred from Vassar to Brown. He is reportedly slated to graduate in 2020.

BDS Activism

On March 20, 2019, Mlyn co-wrote an article for the Brown Daily Herald, titled: “A Jewish case for Brown Divest.” Brown Divest was a BDS campaign organized by a coalition of undergraduate students at Brown.

Mlyn and his co-authors began their piece by stating: “As a group of Jewish students...we stand in solidarity with Palestinian people who are subject to human rights abuses.” 

The authors again referenced their Jewish heritage and said: “we feel particularly compelled to vocalize our opposition to Israeli violation of human rights as Jews in the United States.” The authors explained that since it was Passover the next month, the Biblical commandment “you shall not oppress a stranger” should apply to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

Passover is a Jewish holiday where Jews commemorate the story of the Israelites’ Exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt, to travel to the Promised Land.  

The authors dismissed arguments that Israel has a right to defend itself from Arab aggression and argued one should: “resist cynical, zero-sum calculations of Jewish safety that lead to isolation.”

The authors referred to Israel as “a nation-state whose policies too often rest on dispossession, displacement and violence against Palestinian people” and insisted that calls for divestment...are not inherently anti-Semitic.” 

Ultimately, Brown Divest activists put forward a pro-BDS referendum to the student body. After the referendum was passed on March 21, 2019, the activists promised to “hold the administration accountable to the outcome of this referendum.” 

Brown President Christina Paxson responded to the referendum’s passage, stating: “I have been steadfast in my view that Brown should not embrace any of the planks of the BDS...I made it clear that Brown would not support academic boycotts of Israel or any other country, since doing so would inhibit the open scholarly exchange that is critical for the advancement of knowledge.”

However, Mlyn and his co-authors denied the resolution shut down dialogue and that it unfairly singled out Israel for condemnation, claiming economic cooperation with Israel would: “reveal complicity in violence perpetrated against Palestinians.”

In February 2016, Mlyn was involved in promoting a failed BDS resolution that called on Vassar College (Vassar) to “boycott and divest from the main colonizing force in Israel/Palestine, Zionism.”

In 2017, Mlyn was a summer fellow with the North Carolina chapter of JVP, where he was tasked with “working on a BDS resolution to be presented to the city council as well as various smaller projects focusing on chapter membership retention and publicity.”
Opposing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act

In December 2016, Mlyn was a signatory to a JVP-launched petition opposing the “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act” (AAA) . The AAA directed the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to use the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism when evaluating hostile environment complaints.

JVP’s petition asserted that anti-Semitism did not warrant its own bill, but should rather be considered equal to other forms of bigotry. The petition also purported that “real anti-Semitism” came from the “white supremacist movements in this country” and contended the bill did “little to protect us, as Jewish students, from these dangers.” 

The petition also claimed that BDS was “not inherently anti semitic,” and called the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism “problematic.” 

On April 3, 2019, Mlyn signed another JVP-authored petition that opposed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) of 2019. 

The AAA was introduced to the U.S. Senate in March 2019 and directed the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to use the U.S. State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism when evaluating hostile environment complaints.

JVP called the bill “the Silencing Students Act.”

JVP’s petition asserted that the bill “serves to limit our freedom of expression around the vital issues of our time.” The petition also claimed: “we recognize that criticism of Israel and support for Palestinian rights, including support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is not inherently antisemitic” and claimed the AAA “conflates legitimate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government with antisemitism, using a problematic definition of antisemitism.”

The JVP petition urged the U.S. Senate to reject the bill and “instead to take meaningful action to combat anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, and other forms of bigotry.”

Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour

On November 18, 2015, Mlyn wrote an op-ed for Vassar’s student newspaper, The Miscellany News, promoting an initiative called: “Renounce Birthright.” Mlyn called on Vassar’s Jewish students to renounce a free trip to Israel offered by Birthright.

The Renounce Birthright initiative website stated: “We are young Jews living in the diaspora committed to mobilizing for the abolition of Birthright.” The website also claimed that anybody who visits Israel on Birthright is “willfully taking advantage of [his or her] racial privilege” and “complicit in sustaining the occupation.”

On November 19, 2015, JVP at Vassar shared Mlyn’s op-ed on its Facebook page. 

On January 28, 2016, Mlyn spoke [00:16:00] on Classwars radio, to promote his article condemning Birthright. He stated [00:17:50] that he never traveled on Birthright, but claimed [00:19:10] it was “ part of a body of inherently racist policies that afford privileges to certain people based solely on their ethnicity or religious background.”

On October 2, 2017, Mlyn wrote an op-ed, published in the Forward, urging young Jews to reject Birthright. The editorial, titled “Why I Refuse To Go On Birthright — And You Should, Too,” was featured on JVP’s Return the Birthright Facebook page.

On March 12, 2018, the Return the Birthright campaign posted to Facebook a photo of a group of JVP members standing behind a Return the Birthright sign that featured Mlyn in the center. 

Return the Birthright

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. 

On February 1, 2016 JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar partnered to form VBDS, which sought to pass a resolution that would be considered by the Vassar Student Association (VSA) on March 6, 2016. 

The resolution, which was co-authored by Rosen, demanded that Vassar “boycott and divest from the main colonizing force in Israel/Palestine, Zionism." The resolution also aimed to prohibit using student funds to purchase goods from 11 companies that had ties to Israel, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Sabra Hummus.

VBDS organized over a month and a half of anti-Israel events, culminating in Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), to advocate for the divestment resolution’s passage.

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people” and build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been re-named Palestine Awareness Week.

JVP Vassar - Demonizing Zionism  

On February 5, 2016, JVP Vassar commented on Facebook regarding the “anti-Jewish sentiments” posted by students on Yik Yak, an anonymous social media platform, in the context of arguing about Zionism. 

JVP Vassar wrote:  “Responding ‘F**k Jews’ to Zionistic arguments is neither funny nor politically apt...The arguments we make and the political movements we support are sound in their resolute rejection of Zionism and Israeli militarism and settler-colonialism.”

On November 17, 2015, JVP Vassar shared an article on Facebook titled: “The way for Americans to take on the Islamic state is to end support for Jewish nationalism.” 

The article read: “Secular Jews who prize their freedom in the United States must come to grips with the ideas of Jewish superiority and uniqueness that have propelled Zionist landgrabs and Jim Crow across Palestine to this day.”

JVP Vassar - Divestment Campaign  

In February 2016, JVP Vassar and SJP Vassar joined with other student groups to create a coalition self-described as the Vassar Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Coalition (BDS) Coalition, in order to launch a campus divestment campaign.

JVP Vassar co-authored a divestment resolution with SJP Vassar that called on the Vassar College Student Association (VSA) to issue a statement of support for the BDS movement.

Concurrent with the resolution, the BDS Coalition also submitted an Amendment, authored by JVP Vassar chapter leader, Ethan Cohen, to the VSA Bylaws which would restrict the use of student funds to purchase goods from Israeli companies or companies that support Israel. 

The Amendment was reportedly part of the original BDS resolution but later edited to include both a resolution and an amendment. 

The edited resolution and the amendment were scheduled for consideration by the VSA on March 6, 2016.

On February 22, 2016, the VSA voted ballots would be cast anonymously in the upcoming vote on the BDS resolution, in a change to VSA’s normal open vote procedure. 

On March 6, 2016, the VSA passed the resolution endorsing the BDS movement but did not pass the BDS amendment that would prohibit student funding for certain companies doing business with Israel. 

On April 21, 2016, JVP Vassar promoted the student vote on Facebook: “Jewish Voice for Peace encourages all Vassar students to vote YES on the upcoming BDS referenda!”

JVP Vassar’s Facebook post linked to an opinion piece written by them for the school newspaper titled: “BDS vital step toward colonial resistance.” 

In the article, the authors called upon Vassar to adopt the resolution and amendment and thereby endorse the three-pronged demands of the BDS movement, including the “right of return.”

The Palestinian demand for a “right of return” has been discredited as a way to eliminate the State of Israel.

On April 28, 2016, both the resolution and the amendment were submitted for a full student body vote and rejected.

SJP Vassar - Supporting Terrorists  

On November 7, 2014, SJP Vassar posted in defense of Rasmeah Odeh on Facebook: “Forty years ago, the Israeli army tortured and imprisoned her after a rigged trial. Now she’s being forced to relive the nightmare in a US court #Justice4Rasmeah.”

Odeh, with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was a key military operative [00:02:08] and in 1969 masterminded a PFLP bombing in a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two college students. Odeh also attempted to bomb the British consulate.

Odeh confessed, in a highly detailed account, the day following her arrest. In a 2004 documentary, one of Odeh’s co-conspirators directly implicated her [00:10:58] as the mastermind. 

She was convicted by a Michigan federal jury of immigration fraud in 2014 because she did not disclose her prior conviction and life sentence on her U.S. immigration application. Odeh was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2015, was stripped of her U.S. citizenship in 2017 and deported to Jordan.

On February 12, 2016, SJP Vassar announced on Facebook that they would be selling “sweet f**king antiZionist gear” at their future events. Their Facebook post showed a photo of a man wearing a t-shirt declaring “Resistance Is Not Terrorism” and a portrait of Leila Khaled.

Khaled participated in the hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970. She was a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

On April 16, 2016, SJP Vassar shared an AJ+ video on Facebook that expressed support for Dima Al-Wawi.

SJP Vassar commented on their Facebook post: “Children are locked in solitary confinement. Their families are denied visitation rights. All for allegedly throwing stones at fully armed IDF soldiers, and tanks--but ‘allegedly’ quickly becomes ‘guilty’ in the military courts where the children are tried.”

SJP Vassar - Spreading Hatred of Israel  

On January 21, 2016, SJP Vassar posted on Facebook: “The settler-colonial project, the occupation of Palestine continues and expands. This is why BDS is necessary. This is why we cannot wait for the occupation end [sic]--we must actively take part in ending it.”

On October 3, 2015, during the “Knife Intifada,” SJP Vassar posted on Facebook: “Israel is the oppressor; Palestinians are the oppressed. There can be no equality, until apartheid and occupation ends.”

October 2015 saw a wave of stabbings, known as the “Knife Intifada,” where young Palestinians throughout Israel were stabbing and attempting to stab Israeli civilians. The upsurge in violence across Israel was incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders. The attacks were sparked and fueled by Palestinian leaders propagating the libel that Israel intended to desecrate the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

On September 26, 2015, SJP Vassar posted on Facebook: “Meeting ‘stone-throwers’ with bullets goes beyond any reasonable and ethical definition of ‘self-defense’ But that is the logic of apartheid.”

Rock throwing is a lethal form of violence despite being romanticized as a form of “popular resistance.”

On March 6, 2015, SJP Vassar posted photos of students on Facebook standing near an “End Israeli Apartheid” presentation, as part of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW).

Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), which has been re-named Palestine Awareness Week, is an annual event to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is presented as “an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.”

The photos SJP Vassar posted showed students holding signs that read: “Zionism is Racist” and “Another Jew Acknowleding Apartheid.” 

On March 26, 2014, Vassar’s student newspaper reported that SJP Vassar objected to the International Studies (IS) travel class decision to take a Spring Break trip to Israel.

The 2014 IS trip was reportedly designed to “explore firsthand the roots and causes of geopolitical conflicts” and “looked at issues of water rights and access to the Jordan River, as well as disparities in water distribution in Palestine and Israel.”

SJP Vassar reportedly objected to the class’s choice of destination, alleging that it made Vassar “complicit in supporting Israel and perpetuating oppressive policies and actions against Palestinians.”

On February 6, 2014, SJP Vassar reportedly held a demonstration against the students’ choice and “gave out leaflets describing Israeli apartheid and Israeli appropriation of Palestinian water. They urged students to drop the class and, citing the Boycott, divestment, sanctions call, said that ‘the indigenous people of Palestine’ did not want students going on this trip.”

On March 24, 2014, SJP Vassar posted on Facebook: “The state of Israel is trying to use ‘pinkwashing’--trumpeting its supposedly liberal, feminist and gay-friendly social atmosphere--to wipe away the stain of its military occupation and apartheid treatment of Palestinians.”

“Pinkwashing” is an accusation anti-Israel activists use to demean Israel’s engagement with the LGBTQ community as a publicity ruse.

On March 6, 2014, SJP Vassar posted to Facebook an opinion piece from Tufts University’s student paper, titled: “Those without a Birthright,” with the comment: “To the many Vassar students who embark on birthright, LISTEN UP!” 

Birthright Israel is a free trip to Israel for Jewish young adults from all over the world.

The opinion piece SJP Vassar posted was written anonymously by: “six students who identify as Palestinian.” The students claimed “...To us, Birthright is the erasure of our right to our homeland...Birthright is not only political; it is violent... To make Birthright ‘fun’ and ‘safe’ means eradicating an Arab populace.”

On February 26, 2014, SJP Vassar posted on Facebook: “...check out our mock apartheid wall today! It is made up of all 58 discriminatory Israeli laws and is meant to emulate the actual apartheid wall that encloses the West Bank (and is made of cement, is 26-feet high, and 275 miles long). #IsraeliApartheidWeek”

SJP Vassar - Creating a Hostile Environment for Pro-Israel Students on Campus  

In May 2014, SJP Vassar reportedly “attempted to tar pro-Israel advocates” by posting an anti-semitic, World War II Nazi propaganda cartoon on the Internet, which they subsequently removed.

The cartoon reportedly showed: “...under the heading ‘Liberators,’ shows a monster stomping on a European city while wearing a Star of David, holding a money bag clutched by a long-nosed man, bearing a U.S. flag and cloaked in a Ku Klux Klan hood.”

Vassar’s then-President, Catharine Hill, reportedly announced a review of SJP Vassar’s status as a student group and said that Vassar would probe SJP Vassar’s posting of the Nazi cartoon “as a bias incident under college regulations.”

On May 13, 2014, SJP Vassar posted an “apology” for posting the Nazi image on Facebook and claimed that “the SJP general body was not involved in decisions made about what was being posted.”

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/100000201569095

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigmlyn [Private]

Second Twitter:https://twitter.com/unnones [Private]

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigmlyn/ [Deleteted]