Several major Jewish academic institutions have launched an inter-institutional eLearning Faculty Fellowship to promote creative ideas on the use of educational technology in Jewish higher education. On May 7, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), and Yeshiva University (YU) started the first of five live sessions focusing on tools and strategies to improve Jewish student engagement and education. The workshops are all led by the Columbia Center for …More

This academic year has posed significant challenges for pro-Israel students on California college campuses. Divestment resolutions have been considered by over half a dozen campus student governments and have yielded a range of results spanning from indefinite tabling to unanimous passage. For activists whose campuses passed a non-binding resolution calling for the university to pull funds from companies that profit from Israeli partnerships, the next step has been confusing, often leading into uncharted …More

The Oberlin College Student Senate endorsed a resolution that calls for the college to divest from six companies that do business in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and Gaza. Following a three-hour discussion, the resolution was approved "by majority" on Monday, the Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine said in a news release. The six companies are Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Group 4 Securicor, SodaStream, Elbit Systems and Veolia. The Students for a Free Palestine group at Oberlin said it would …More

Despite the stress of finals, Rutgers University students are taking a break from their studies to advocate for Israel… through paint. Last Wednesday, Rutgers Hillel set up a 20-foot mural in front of their building on College Avenue for students to graffiti about Israel. “Any student who wants to contribute to the graffiti wall can do as such all day today,” Jerry Enis, Rutgers Hillel’s communications consultant, told Israel Campus Beat before the event. “While they are painting, …More

NoCamels Team, NoCamels - Israel Innovation News The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has started teaching its global course in partnership with Coursera, which provides free online courses from senior lecturers at some of the world’s leading universities. The course, Synapses, Neurons and Brains, has approximately 40,000 students from around the world registered, including students from Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, India, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco and Algeria, as …More

Sit back by the bonfire and pop open a brewski, it’s Lag B’Omer. Since we have been counting the Omer--a biblical measure of barley that was brought as an offering to the Temple--each evening from the second night of Passover, what better way to mark the coming holiday than by downing a barley beverage, cold and carbonated? What’s the occasion? Lag B'Omer marks the ending of a plague during the Bar Kochba revolt in the second century C.E. According to tradition, students and soldiers were …More

Question: What do you get when you mix finger painting with cross-college training conventions and games on college quads? Answer: Israel Peace Week celebrations on college campuses across America. Israel Peace Week began as a grassroots initiative a few years ago when a group of Hasbara fellows on college campuses were looking for a way to spread the message that Israel wants peace. Since then, it has been adapted by students at dozens of campuses who devise new names and new methods to capture the attention of …More

Yale University made collegiate history this week, electing the university’s first Israeli student body president. Daniel Avraham is a 24-year-old Jerusalem native and second year student at Yale, enrolled in the ethics and economics program. He will serve as head of YCC, the university’s student union. Avraham is a graduate of the Gymnasia Herzliya high school in Tel Aviv and a past IDF intelligence officer. When Avraham graduates, he’ll join the esteemed ranks of alumni like Bill Clinton, …More

A journalism school at an Israeli college has been named in Daniel Pearl’s honor. The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya opened the Daniel Pearl International Journalism Institute on Wednesday, a testament to the life of a journalist killed in the line of duty. Pearl was kidnapped by Pakistani radicals in 2002 while working for the Wall Street Journal. Before his beheading, his last words were, “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.” Pearl’s story has become …More

Resolutions calling for divestment from companies doing business with Israel continue to make news on campuses in the University of California system. Last week, student governments at four campus addressed similar bills and opponents of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement racked up some successes. In a year where three campus councils had voted to pass a BDS resolution, last week saw the reversal of one of those votes, the failure of another effort, while two more schools declined to consider …More

The student government at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has rejected an Israel divestment resolution in the latest victory for pro-Israel students in the University of California (UC) system. After a 14-hour hearing—most of which was devoted to the Israel divestment resolution—that lasted from Wednesday night until 8 a.m. Thursday, the resolution was narrowly defeated, 11-10-1, before the Associated Students of the University of California, Santa Barbara (ASUCSB). The debate …More

What comes to mind when you hear the word Israel? When University of Florida junior Paige Milch realized that for many people the answer was conflict, war and fighting, she decided to take action. Milch wants you think of innovation, environmentalism and sustainability. “There are so many different avenues to express support for Israel besides politics, and we want to show students that,” she said. To spearhead this apolitical effort, Milch, along with her co-chair Emily Sasser, have founded an …More