Written by Bella Brannon and Adam Thaw
On January 16th, the Daily Bruin published a front-page article titled “Documents reveal details behind planning process of Bruins for Israel rally.” The title suggests a grand exposè. Language describing a “deep search” through documents and emails suggests that Hillel, UCLA’s flagship Jewish group, is an organization worthy of suspicion and scrutiny. In reality, the piece searches for a scandal that does not exist. It does nothing more than make skin-deep claims about Hillel policy and arrives at the simple conclusion that Jewish organizations spent money on security and materials for a November 7th rally to call for the release of Israeli hostages. G-d forbid.
The piece is rife with shortcomings. Quotes are not contextualized and are purposefully misconstrued to fit a caricature of Hillel as an organization that abhors discourse. The piece claims that per Hillel policy, individuals who do not support Israel’s existence as a Jewish homeland are asked to stop affiliating with Hillel. In reality, Hillel’s policy that student organizations must believe in Israel’s right to exist only extends to student organizations that expect to receive funding from Hillel, and never to individuals. Jewish individuals of all denominations and ideologies are welcome to study, schmooze, eat, and pray at Hillel.
Hillel does not endorse a definitive vision for Israel, just that it has the right to exist. Hillel does not maintain that organizations must never criticize the Israeli government or its treatment of Palestinians or that there must be a one-state or two-state solution. Hillel only maintains that an organization must believe that Jews have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.
The truth is that Hillel is a pluralistic Jewish organization that is part of Hillel International. Students who affiliate with Hillel come from all sorts of backgrounds and hold a myriad of opinions on Israel/ Palestine. Hillel as an institution caters to the diverse Jewish community on campus. Since Oct 7, Hillel has indeed hosted many pro-Israel events, but also held liberal discussion spaces, held a blood drive, and hosted Bassem Eid, a Palestinian activist from the West Bank. Instead of highlighting this, the article reveals that the Daily Bruin authors had a certain image they wished to convey of Hillel, and cherry-picked bits of quotes and emails to fit that narrative.
In their article titled “Students for Justice in Palestine express event planning struggles with UCLA Admin,” the Daily Bruin quotes SJP student leaders, but student voices are not included in their piece on Israel advocacy, except for a brief statement from an unnamed BFI representative. In the article on Israel advocacy, the Daily Bruin includes a statement from a student representative from SJP, but no Jewish student testimonies are included. It is almost laughable that non-Jewish student voices were highlighted over Jewish student voices in an article concerning Hillel and BFI. Instead of hearing from the pro-Israel student community, the Daily Bruin has contrived a negative narrative against Israel advocacy alone. True investigative journalism is led by contextualized evidence, not agenda.
No other student group has been subjected to a public investigation of their operating budget in recent memory. SJP, which has hosted numerous rallies since October 7th, emerged with a piece completely sympathetic to their planning. To solely investigate economic conspiracies against Jewish groups is, at best, prejudice against Jewish groups and, at worst, a callback to ancient antisemitic tropes about Jews and money that have propelled violence against Jewish people for centuries.
In response to the article, the Executive Director of Hillel- Dan Gold- commented in a Hillel GroupMe that “I was not aware this article would be published today – and I was also told by the DB that they were ‘investigating’ how all groups get their funding and pay for things. I expressed to them I believed focusing on how the Jewish community deals with money is problematic and has some bad troupes. They told me they understood that.”
To only offer sympathy to one group while demonizing another goes beyond journalistic malpractice, it’s downright dehumanizing. We hope that moving forward, the Daily Bruin will extend the same standard to all subjects, on all sides of a conflict and focus on genuine narratives, not ones driven by outsider agenda.
