In the News

It is routine for democratic countries to ban foreign nationals who wish to harm it. The goal of BDS is to destroy Israel, and it is prudent for Israel to respond as it has.

The Coalition for Jewish Values argued that the president’s choice to renominate Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was “akin to putting an avid hunter on the board of PETA.”

“The December 6 statement was consistent with the attitudes of those URJ leaders who sat down with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, yet refused to join President Trump for a High Holy Day phone call,” said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents several hundred Orthodox rabbis. “It’s heartening that the pushback from other Reform leaders apparently forced a change of course.”

Olson’s participation in the petition drew sharp criticism from some in the Jewish community. The Coalition for Jewish Values, a new right-wing Orthodox organization advocating “for classical Jewish ideas and standards in matters of American public policy” criticised Olson’s endorsement in a letter to YU’s president Rabbi Dr Ari Berman.

The Coalition for Jewish Values, a new right-wing Orthodox organization, released a statement calling on YU president Ari Berman to “publicly disavow this repugnant statement, and refer Professor Olson’s endorsement to the appropriate faculty committee for review.”

In a December 14 letter to Dr. Berman, six rabbis, the officers of the [CJV], claimed that the statement “misportrays propaganda” as fact. They requested “that Yeshiva University publicly disavow this repugnant statement” and referred “Professor Olson’s endorsement to the appropriate faculty committee for review.”

A coalition of rabbis is criticizing the Trump administration for re-nominating radical sexual identity activist Chai Feldblum to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

In support of its statement, the CJV pointed out something I wasn’t aware of. In 2012, Feldblum was part of the EEOC when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected its position.

The Coalition for Jewish Values welcomed news that US President Donald Trump had commuted the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, former head of the country’s largest kosher meat-processing company, who had been sentenced to 27 years in prison for fraud and money laundering.

In a letter last week to YU President Berman, CJV President Rabbi Pesach Lerner and his colleagues argued that Olson’s participation in the divide-Jerusalem declaration is so far outside the Jewish community consensus that he is “harming the university’s reputation in the eyes of the Jewish community.”