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Jewish Students Supposedly Started JVP Penn Chapter. I Call BS.

The Daily Pennsylvanian reports how two Jewish students have started a Penn chapter for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP):

Two students established a Penn chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace earlier this month. 

JVP is a national organization that aims to build a Jewish movement in support of Palestinian liberation. Its network consists of pro-Palestinian Jewish students across the country who develop Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns against Israel and “amplify a Jewish voice that insists on freedom for Palestinians.” The Penn JVP Chapter was founded by a College sophomore and graduate student, who requested anonymity due to fear of personal harassment.  

The graduate student told The Daily Pennsylvanian that they started the organization to provide a space for anti-Zionist Jewish students at Penn to come together. 

“I can imagine there are young Jews out there, too, like at Penn, who are feeling alienated because everyone around them is cheerleading a genocide, or is just quiet and passive in the face of a genocide,” they said.

The graduate student added that one of the organization’s biggest challenges thus far has been recruitment, citing the “systems that are in place,” as holding the JVP chapter back. When asked how many members the group currently has, they pointed to the chapter’s Instagram follower count, which is currently at approximately 200.

The sophomore founder emphasized that the group is a space for Jewish students who do not want to be “complicit in genocide.”

“The charge of antisemitism is so often leveled against Palestinians,” the sophomore said. “Jewish groups like JVP who will work as allies with Palestinians show that … this isn’t an ethnic conflict. This is a simple matter of colonialism versus defenseless Indigenous people.”

The sophomore explained that they were raised in a Zionist household and visited Israel before the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. They felt compelled to “reconsider” their Zionist views after seeing Israelis and Jewish Americans treat Palestinians as “subhuman” following the start of the war in Gaza.

“I see so many Jews acting for the genocide,” the sophomore said. “I feel like I need to do something to counteract that.” 

On Tuesday, JVP will hold a Gaza Solidarity Sukkah from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Penn Women’s Center. The event is for Sukkot, a seven-day Jewish holiday that celebrates the fall harvest. During the holiday, practitioners live and eat meals in a Sukkah — an outdoor, walled structure with a roof made from plant material.

The Gaza Solidarity Sukkah, which was organized in conjunction with another progressive Jewish group, Penn Chavurah, will be erected in “firm support of the Palestinian right to return, to remain, and to resist,” according to an Oct. 19 Penn JVP press release. 

I fully suspect that it were not Jewish students who started this chapter at all, and this is the reason they requested anonymity.

For a start, the logic doesn’t fit. Pro-Israel Jews are the ones feeling alienated on campuses these days, not the anti-Zionist ones, who have far-too-many fellow students and faculty out there protesting with them. For instance, just 5 days after October 7, over 100 people descended on Penn to protest Israel. The amount was approximately 80 when they held a “one year of genocide” protest just over two weeks ago. Earlier this month, Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held a week of action titled “One Year of Genocide For Gaza We Rise.” It involved a “memorial” which “over 40 students, faculty, SJP and community members” helped set up. And there are so many anti-Israel students there, that Penn State SJP was until recently not even the only such group; there was also one called Penn Against the Occupation, which was banned in April.

The article also mentions the existence of another Jewish anti-Zionist group called Penn Chavurah, so why the need to create this new chapter to “provide a space for anti-Zionist Jewish students at Penn to come together” if such a group supposedly exists already? 

In other words, anti-Israel Jews already have a space to come together, and surely do not feel that alienated.

And it is not like a whacky idea that anti-Israel folk would be cosplaying as Jews. There is this recent example:

Of course, he might actually be Jewish, so I will remind you how I exposed in the past how the JVP Facebook page had a Lebanese administrator – highly unlikely to be Jewish. And we have already seen non-Jews pretending to be JVP Jews in order to “As-a-Jew” bash Israel. So there is a precedent when it comes to JVP and faux Jews.

The sophomore founder claims that they were raised in a Zionist household and had even visited Israel but felt compelled to reconsider their Zionist views after seeing Israelis and Jewish Americans react to October 7. If they are telling the truth (which I doubt), this is an indictment on them as a human being; to witness what Hamas perpetrated against civilians on October 7 and yet immediately decide to renounce your Zionist views and instead dedicate yourself to siding with the perpetrators.

As for the claim their Instagram has approximately 200 followers, this is true, but – not surprisingly – the vast majority of names in the follower list are not Jewish.

Meanwhile, one can imagine what their “Gaza Solidarity Sukkah” will look like.

About the author

Picture of David Lange

David Lange

A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
Picture of David Lange

David Lange

A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
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