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Formation | 2012 |
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Founders | Ilan Sinelnikov (President of the Organization) Valeria Chazin (Chairwoman, Board of Directors) |
Type | 501(c)(3) non-profit |
Focus | Pro Israel Campus Activity |
Headquarters | Minneapolis, MN |
Leaders | Valeria Chazin, Ilan Sinelnikov & Naor Bitton |
Website | http://www.ssimovement.org/ |
Students Supporting Israel (also known as SSI) is a Zionist international student activist movement that supports Israel as a Jewish and democratic nation-state. "SSI mission is to be a clear and confident pro-Israel voice, and to support students in grassroots activism". As of June 2024, SSI has more than 130 chapters across campuses in the United States, Canada, and Argentina. [1] SSI was founded in 2012 in Minnesota, in March of 2014 Indiana University and DePaul University students registered SSI chapters on their campuses turning SSI to a national movement. The first university to open an SSI club in Canada was the Toronto Metropolitan University (previously Ryerson University) on April of 2014. By October of 2014 and the new fall semester, SSI was approved as a 501c3 non-profit organization and operated on 27 campuses. From October 2023 until the end of the 2023/4 academic year, more than 50 schools started an SSI club on their campus. SSI national offices are in Minneapolis. The founders of the organizations are Ilan Sinelnikov, Valeria Chazin, and Naor Bitton.
As a student group, it has demonstrated influence in student government bodies on several occasions including the Israeli Academic Cooperation position statement at the University of Minnesota, which paved the way for a similar Israeli Support Resolution at the University of Georgia followed shortly by Texas A&M University. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Zionism is a nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people through the colonization of a land outside of Europe, with an eventual focus on Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became an ideology that supports the development and protection of Israel as a Jewish state.
Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, also known as Hillel International, is the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, working with thousands of college students globally. Hillel is represented at more than 850 colleges and communities throughout North America and globally, including 30 communities in the former Soviet Union, nine in Israel, and five in South America.
StandWithUs (SWU) is a nonprofit right-wing pro-Israel advocacy organization founded in Los Angeles in 2001 by Roz Rothstein, Jerry Rothstein, and Esther Renzer.
Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.
The Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ) was a North American network of Jewish student activists who have organized around principles of social justice and peace in Israel and Palestine. The UPZ provides guidance, education, and resources to students who seek to contribute a progressive voice into the campus debate concerning Israel and Palestine.
The Israel lobby in the United Kingdom are individuals and groups seeking to influence the foreign policy of the United Kingdom in favour of bilateral ties with Israel, Zionism, Israel, or the policies of the Israeli government. As any lobby, such individuals and groups may seek to influence politicians and political parties, the media, the general public or specific groups or sectors.
Hillel Weiss is a professor emeritus of literature at Bar Ilan University in Israel.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
The Muslim Student Union of the University of California, Irvine is a student organization at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in Irvine, United States, and an affiliated chapter of the national Muslim Students' Association. Its self-declared mission is to create an open environment, to promote social awareness, to strengthen Islamic foundations, and to cater to the Muslim student community at UCI.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Avraham "Miko" Peled is an Israeli-American activist, author, and karate instructor. He is author of the books The General’s Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, published in 2012, and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, published in 2017. He is also an international speaker.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law, defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Kenneth L. Marcus in 2012 with the stated purpose of advancing the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promoting justice for all peoples. LDB is active on American campuses, where it says it combats antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Im Tirtzu is a Zionist non-governmental organization based in Israel. Its name is derived from an epigraph appended to the frontispiece of Theodor Herzl's novel Altneuland, 'if you wish it, it is no fairy-tale,' rendered into modern Hebrew in Nahum Sokolow's translation in 1903, as Im tirtzu ein zo agadah.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. It has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times reported that "S.J.P., founded in 2001 at the University of California, Berkeley, has become the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus."
Crossing the Line 2: The New Face of Anti-Semitism on Campus is a 2015 film which documents how a growing number of anti-Israel demonstrations on U.S. campuses also include anti-Semitic messaging. The filmmakers interviewed pro-Israel college students, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who say that they feel increasingly intimidated to express their support for Israel on campus.
Reactions to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) refer to the views of international actors on the BDS movement.
Naor Reuven Bitton is an Israeli political activist and community leader. He is a Fulbright Scholar and was one of the founders of the international advocacy organization Students Supporting Israel (SSI), that has dozens of pro-Israel groups across US and Canadian campuses. Bitton published numerous op-eds concerning the State of Israel in American and Israeli news outlets.
The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge is a non-fiction book written by professor and historian Ilan Pappé about the Zionist ideology's role in Israeli education, media, and film. It was published in 2014 by Verso Books. The book discusses three periods in the effort to define Zionism: the classic Zionist account of the history of Israel; the emergence of the post-Zionism movement in the 1990s; and the rise of neo-Zionism, which Pappé argues is a highly nationalistic and racist ideology.