Addressing a large crowd of Chicago Jewish community leaders convened by JUF's JCRC at its monthly meeting, University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign Chancellor Richard Herman announced Tuesday at the Federation that the university will reinstate its Israel study abroad program next academic year. The announcement came after a yearlong campaign, launched by Eli Wald, a junior at UIUC and the JCRC/Hillel intern. JCRC and the campus Hillel were both extensively involved in advocating for the program's reinstatement after the administration cancelled UIUC's direct program with Hebrew University in 2002.

The JCRC/Hillel Israel Initiaive will be providing incentive scholarships for U of I students who pursue this study abroad option in Israel.

The chancellor also announced that the university will match Jewish Federation's funds for the Israel Studies Project over the next five years. The program recently brought Israeli journalist and author Yossi Klein Halevi as writer in residence to campus, and Israeli author Hillel Halkin is scheduled to come in the spring. Next year an Israeli novelist is scheduled to be on campus for the fall semester, and recruiting is underway for the spring.

Finally, Herman stated that a full-time staff person now advises the university's Daily Illini newspaper, a publication that previously was entirely student-run. The advisor's role, in part, is to ensure there is some institutional memory to a paper that in the past has run anti-Semitic cartoons, letters to the editor and other highly problematic material.

Tuesday night the Assembly of the Chicago Presbytery deadlocked--75 to 75--on whether to support their national church's divestment policy; the group will revisit divestment at its next meeting in February. On a related vote it did overwhelmingly agree to confront corporations that, "prolong Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories."

Meanwhile, a week after Jewish community leaders expressed outrage over a meeting co-sponsored by the Presbytery's Middle East Task Force with Hezbollah, others are now echoing that criticism, including the Chicago City Council, members of Congress and the Chicago Sun-Times which argued, "...why the Rev. Robert Reynolds, the man who heads the Chicago Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church USA, would think it was a good idea to meet with a Hezbollah commander while in the Middle East is anyone's guess."

In response to this week's developments, JUF/JF President Steven B. Nasatir, who spoke out forcefully against the divestment policy back in 2004, said, "It is simply outrageous that the Chicago Presbytery, fresh from a meeting with Hezbollah that would have chastened most any other American institution, can still be contemplating divesting from this Middle East democracy. Toying with economic warfare against the Jewish State while embracing terrorists who kill Americans and Jews is a formula counter-productive to Middle East peace or anything resembling normal relations between our two local communities. At the same time, we are grateful and will forever remember those righteous Presbyterians--of whom there are many--who are standing up and doing the right thing."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escalated his anti-Israeli rhetoric Wednesday, calling the Holocaust a "myth" used by Europeans to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world. This was the first time he publicly denied the Holocaust. Last week he said that Israel should move to Europe.

Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's foreign policy department, told Israel Radio that an international diplomatic effort was underway to put a stop to the Iranian nuclear threat.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation preventing companies from denying life insurance to people who travel to Israel. The Life Insurance Fairness for Travelers Act passed the House on Wednesday as part of the extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. The bill says companies must make available coverage that does not preclude legal foreign travel, and also restricts premiums for such travel.

Israel's Image Not So Terrible by Eytan Schwartz
Cross, Crescent and Diamond by Chanan Tigay
Iran's Not-So-Secret Hatred, Chicago Tribune Editorial
What to Do With Ahmadinejad by Uzi Benziman
Unsafe Passage, JPost Editorial
Message to Red Cross: About Time, NY Times Editorial
One Small Step for Israel, One Giant Step for Mankind by June Walker
'Munich' Sparks Debate by Tom Tugend
Hamas at a Crossroads? by Yoram Schweitzer