Jews unite to fight Michigan divestment conference

NEW YORK -- The anti-Israel divestment movement could enter a critical phase this weekend when Palestinian students from across the country gather at the University of Michigan.

The gathering, the Second National Student Conference on the Palestine Solidarity Movement, is sponsored by a pro-Palestinian campus group, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality.

Among other focuses, the conference is calling on universities to divest their holdings in companies that do business with the Jewish state.

With divestment under scrutiny following criticism from Harvard University's president, Jewish activists hope the spotlight on the conference -- and the counter-activities Jewish groups are planning -- spells the beginning of the end of the divestment movement.

"When we defeat it at" the University of Michigan, "it's going to be pretty clear that it's not welcome" on any university in the United States, said Benjamin Berger, Hillel's staff coordinator for pro-Israel groups at the University of Michigan.

Hillel, which has been working closely with mainstream Jewish groups on campus, is promoting its own pro-Israel agenda as a counterweight to the conference. So, too, is a new campus group called the Michigan Student Zionists.

Divestment is among the most controversial steps in the arsenal of anti-Israel activism that has gripped college campuses since the Palestinian intifada began two years ago.

The divestment campaign was launched at the first conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement last fall at the University of California at Berkeley.

Divestment petitions since have spread to 40 universities. However, counterpetitions opposing divestment have garnered 10 times as many signatures, according to Michael Jankelowitz, the Jewish Agency for Israel's representative to Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.

Staff from Hillel and local Jewish federations met privately with the University of Michigan's president last week to voice security concerns and to ensure that portions of the conference advertised as public indeed are open to all.

Some members of the Jewish community recommended ignoring the conference to minimize the publicity it received, but university administrators have come out strongly against the conference.

Given the nature of the conference, the university had to take a high-profile stand, said Laurence Deitch, chairman of the University of Michigan's Board of Regents.

"I felt it was very important to speak out so that people understood that this was a student-organized conference and did not reflect the views of the University of Michigan," he said.

Hillel will get the jump on the anti-Israel crowd with a number of programs Thursday: a mid-day "We Stand With Israel" rally, an evening speech by Israeli historian and former Knesset member Michael Bar-Zohar and an anti-divestment petition.

Hillel also sponsored a lecture last week by Judaic studies professors, rejecting the link between Israel and apartheid, that drew more than 500 people.

But Hillel decided that "direct confrontation is not the way to go," Berger said.

The newly formed Michigan Student Zionists -- supported by the Zionist Organization of America and the Orthodox outreach group Aish HaTorah -- rejects that approach.

MSZ has scheduled several events for Sunday, while the conference is in session. It has planned a rally to protest the conference as anti-Semitic and a three-hour counter-conference with pro-Israel lecturers.

Another activist group, Coalition for Jewish Concerns -- Amcha, is helping to coordinate the MSZ events and is bringing four busloads of students from the New York area to participate.

"We're going there to just say this is a perversion of the university system in America," said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, national vice president of Amcha. "This is not something we're able to sit back and watch."

Another grass-roots group composed of university alumni is protesting the conference with a petition that began Oct. 4 and currently has 100 signatures.

"We call on the organizers, sponsors, participants and supporters of the conference to explicitly accept peace with Israel as a goal, and denounce efforts to delegitimize and destroy Israel," the petition reads.

It also calls on the conference to explicitly condemn acts of terrorism and "stop promoting anti-Semitism by equating Zionism -- Jewish national liberation -- with racism and Nazism, and stop using a few unrepresentative Jewish radicals to justify hate."