Special To The Jewish Week
From coast to coast, movements for social justice on American campuses are increasingly taking an alarming turn. Some activists, preeminently Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), have begun enforcing a crude ideological purity in ways profoundly at odds with the principles of open debate and inclusive discussion that define the academy. SJP and allied groups not only seek to isolate Israel economically, academically, and culturally through Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and they not only disrupt events related to Israel or featuring Israelis, SJP now also aims to prohibit Hillel, the central support for Jewish life on campus, along with its affiliates, from engaging in social justice work.