Tali Ioselevich

Overview

Tali Ioselevich has trivialized anti-Semitism at McGill University (McGill), spread hatred of Israel and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Iosevich’s Instagram account description stated as of April, 2018: “i came here to drink gender and to punch zionists, and I'm all out of gender.”

Ioselevich was an activist with the #returnthebirthright initiative, launched by the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) organization against the Birthright Jewish heritage tour.

Ioselevich is a member of the Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) chapter at McGill, “an anti-Zionist Jewish student group.” IJV has promoted Holocaust denial and has been accused of peddling “antisemitism under the guise of radical anti-Zionism.” The group has also promoted BDS.

As of April 2018, Ioselevich’s Facebook page said that she began studying Environmental Studies at McGill in September 2017. Her Linkedin page said she studied Illustration at Dawson College, in Montreal, from 2014-2017.

Trivializing Anti-Semitism

On December 6, 2017, Ioselevich was quoted in a McGill Tribune article denying the existence of a campaign that sought to remove “all Jewish and anti-BDS students” from positions on the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU).

In October 2017, charges of anti-Semitism were brought against the McGill campus group “Democratize SSMU” for using anti-Semitic language when opposing the ratification of a Jewish student representative, Noah Lew.

That month, Democratize SSMU apologized on Facebook for using anti-Semitic tropes “of Jewish people as corrupt and politically powerful” in their campaign material. The group also noted that “anti-Semitism is not acceptable anywhere, and is a real and toxic force in our society and on campus.”

On October 27, 2017, Democratize SSMU wrote a Facebook post explaining that Lew was targeted partly because of his anti-BDS stance.

Spreading Hatred of Israel

Following the October 2017 controversy surrounding Noah Lew and Democratize SSMU, Ioselevich wrote an editorial in the McGill Tribune accusing Israel of “violent occupation and settler colonialism.”

She also claimed that Israel was created for “specifically the white Jews of Eastern Europe” and that Israel “simultaneously exterminates, displaces, and degrades Palestinians.” She also argued that “the conflation of Jewishness and Zionism needs to be eradicated.”

On November 6, 2017, Ioselevich wrote an editorial for the McGill Daily titled “I’m Jewish, and I voted against ratifying Noah Lew.” In her article, Ioselevich accused Israel of being a “settler colonial state” and that she was “sick and tired of people equating Jewishness with Zionism.”

She continued, “As a white Jewish student who is vehemently anti-Zionist, it is absolutely vital for me to explain why I support Democratize SSMU and BDS.” She then shared a quote equating Zionism with anti-Semitism: “‘Zionism and antisemitism — two sides of the same coin, both maintaining that Jews do not belong in the countries where they’ve lived over the centuries.”

Ioselevich also accused Israel of “state-sanctioned brutality, and discrimination against its non-Jewish citizens.” She then claimed that Israel attempts to “reduce” the diasporic Jewish experience “to a single, hegemonic narrative.”

On August 30, 2017, Ioselevich tweeted “i love living in a universe where talk show hosts endorse an apartheid state on social media.” Her tweet referred to another tweet by talk-show host Conan O’ Brien’s describing his trip to Israel.

On November 8, 2016, Ioselevich tweeted: “Zionist Jews are truly... terrifying.” She then commented, “actually let me amend that, zionists in general are terrifying.”

Condemning Jewish Heritage Tour

On December 2, 2017, Ioselevich posted a photo on Instagram and wrote “tbh my life now is just driving to New York during finals to protest birthright.”

On December 3, 2017 Ioselevich participated in a Return the Birthright protest outside the Taglit-Birthright offices in New York City, where JVP members assembled to chant anti-Birthright slogans.

On December 14, 2017, Ioselevich was featured in a Facebook photo holding a sign at the protest that read: “Wherever we live, that’s our homeland.”

Ioselevich spoke [1:21:22] at the protest and said: “I was born in Israel...I can’t f**king stand by and support a state that reenacts traumas and persecutions of its past on Palestinians. I’m Jewish, I grew up in the diaspora, I don’t f**king support Israel and I don’t support apartheid.”

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.

Anti-Israel Campus Activism

Ioselevich indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an event on December 23, 2017, called, “Jerusalem is the Capital of Palestine,” co-hosted by Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR). SPHR is a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), employing an alternative name.

Ioselevich indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an event on September 11, 2017, called “Homemade Palestinian Hummus Sale” to support the BDS Action Network group at McGill.

Ioselevich indicated on Facebook that she “went” to an event on March 6, 2017, called “Israeli Apartheid Week Montréal 2017.” The event was described as “Ten days of panels, workshops, film screenings, demonstrations and cultural events to raise awareness around the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.”

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented internationally as a “series of events that seeks to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” One of its goals is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been renamed Palestine Awareness Week.

Promoting BDS

On October 23, 2017, Ioselevich retweeted a tweet that said: “hell yeah I'm into BDSM

B- boycott
D- divestment
S- sanctions
M- mmmmMMMM WHATCHA SAY MHMMM THAT U ONLY MEANT WELL?? WELL OF COURSE U DI.”

Ioselevich indicated on Facebook that she “went” to a September 20, 2017 event called “McGill BDS First Open Meeting,” hosted by the BDS Action Network group at McGill.
The event description encouraged people to “Join the McGill BDS Action Network in our first meeting of the year to organize to end McGill's complicity in Israeli apartheid.”

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.”

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.