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Posts tagged ‘israel’

Mar 4

Middlebury Opens Two New Schools in Middle East

Ben-Gurion University in Israel

Amman University in Jordan

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, the Middlebury Communications Office announced the opening of two new Study Abroad programs in the Middle East.

Starting in the 2011-2012 academic year, Middlebury will accept students into its new C.V. Starr-Middlebury School in Amman, Jordan. The Amman program, affiliated with The University of Jordan, the country’s oldest four-year university.

The Amman program will be Middlebury’s second C.V. Starr-Middlebury School in the Middle East. Middlebury’s first school in the region opened in 2007 in Alexandria, Egypt. Due to the region’s recent unrest, the Alexandria program has been suspended for the spring 2011 semester. The Study Abroad office, however, stated that Alexandria program is expected to be “fully operational in fall 2011.” A decision to extend the suspension into next year wil be made in July, at which time students admitted into the Egypt program for next year will be invited to enroll in the new program in Jordan.

Middlebury also announced the spring 2012 opening of a Study Abroad school in Beer Sheva, Israel, affiliated with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and jointly operated with Brandeis University. Middlebury’s unique Language Pledge will make the Beer Sheva program “the only study abroad program in Israel designed from beginning to end to be experienced exclusively in Hebrew.”

Middlebury now hosts study abroad programs in 36 cities in 15 countries around the world.

Oct 21

Moriel Rothman ’11 on Zionism for the Huffington Post

Middlebury senior Moriel Rothman is the current President of the national student arm of the pro-peace, pro-Israel group J Street. In addition to his role in the national “J-Street U,” Mori was also one of the driving forces behind establishing a Middlebury chapter of J-Street U on campus.

Today, the Huffington Post published a piece by Mori arguing against the Israeli Cabinet’s recent vote to require new Israeli citizens to pledge allegiance to Isreal as a Jewish and democratic state. Mori’s piece also addresses the more general issue of Zionism at American colleges including Middlebury:

I, like many in the American Jewish community, am a Zionist: I am committed to an Israel that is and will continue to be the democratic homeland of the Jewish people.

My Zionism, however, is not independent of my Jewish commitments to justice and equality. I was taught that central to the Jewish tradition is the obligation to stand to with those who suffer persecution, those on the margins.

…I see the effect of [a split between a pro-Israel camp and a progressive camp] on my campus and at universities throughout the country. Within the pro-Israel tent students who draw attention to the troubling character of a bill like the loyalty oath are accused of giving ammunition to those that would de-legitimize the very idea of a Jewish democracy. Meanwhile progressive campus groups committed to the environment, queer rights, anti-racism and other causes are full of Jews who see their politics and Judaism as inextricably linked yet stay away from any discussion of Israel. This landscape should trouble those unequivocally supportive of Israel, those concerned by its policies, as well as those invested in a progressive Jewish political tradition.