Heh. I think the comments on Hillel needing to be an inclusive organisation are bang-on — and a lot more fruitful than creating a thousand little ghettos each filled with thinkalink clones.
Maybe that’s Hillel’s next challenge in reaching out to students: fostering a diverse environment.
On a separate note, it’s kind of interesting to hear yet more of Redford’s side of the story … now who out there’s gonna do some actual journalism on thus stuff?

serves the little bitch right. i sense she’s a loudmouth troublemaker who thought being jewish would jusitfy her loudmouth, troublemaking personality. liking israel isnt the problem, it was her need to denounce and abuse those she disagreed with.

Do you blame Israel more, or the Palestinians? How in the hell do you quantify blame? And why on Earth are you leaving out some of the crucial actors — like, oh, I don’t know, Arab governments, Arabic-language media…
Israel has missed a thousand opportunities because of belligerence and stubbornness, and ruined a thousand more. Palestinians have missed opportunities constantly, and preferred to wage a war of stunningly gratuitous violence which racist Westerners cheer on saying that, well, this is how noble savages react when prodded. But the Arab League states and, for the last decade, an increasingly prominent Arabic-language media have established the institutional and intellectual framework for all this to happen.
So who I blame? Lots of people. But I don’t believe that any solutions are possible if you leave those two sets out.
Hillel, for better or worse, has a policy of being pro-Israel. No, they have a policy of being hysterically and sycophantly protective of Israel.
It’s time that changed. The Web is a great way to do it. Jews want to support Israel — I certainly do — because we believe in Jewish peoplehood and the concordant Jewish right to self-determination under international law. Put simply, we exist and we have a right to.
But the way in which many of us want to support Israel is not Hillel’s way. They concentrate on publicity in the wider non-Jewish world. But they’ve neglected dialogue within the Jewish world. That doesn’t make any sense: the best way to engage Jews is to present Israel — the country, the policies, the governments — as a real-life thing we can engage in and debate, not as an either-or proposition.
So: Miss Redford should have acted with more tact and respect to her colleagues at the Embassy. When in a position that requires both leadership and team working skills such as the presidency of a Hillel chapter, she shouldn’t have been shooting her mouth off. Absolutely. She did a lousy job of leadership. But Hillel didn’t handle her with much tact, either, particularly given her youth and inexperience.
Instead, they chose to alienate her and turn her into a symbol of something which doesn’t really exist — a closedmindedness which I think is a good deal more stereotypes and misunderstandings on one side, and defensiveness on the other, then actually-held beliefs.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.

Interesting point, Fineline.
Hillel’s various mission statements, as seen on their website, specify that the organization supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state within secure and defined borders. Nothing in Redford’s writings seems to indicate that she holds any position that does not fall within these parameters. Hillels vary greatly in political orientation – some have hosted IDF refuseniks; others regularly host speakers affiliated with the settler’s movement, or who advocate forcible transfer of Palestinians to Jordan.
All Hillels have a responsibility to be inclusive of all Jews whose views on Israel fall within the specified parameters (nevermind that this policy would have excluded eminent Jews such as the anarchist Emma Goldman, whose portrait hangs in at least one Hillel I’ve visited).
Personally, I find the politicization of Hillel to be extremely problematic. Hillel’stated goal of being inclusive of all Jews is contradicted by its zionist prerequisites – for example, Neturei Karta and other religious anti-zionists are de facto excluded, as are secular Jews who are interested in Jewish cultural activities, but are denied the right to participate in them as a result of their views on Israel.
I would like to see Hillel free itself of these restrictions, which impede its mission to maximize the number of Jews doing Jewish things with other Jews on college campuses. I support every student’s right to advocate for or against Israel – I just don’t think that should have any bearing on whether they are permitted to participate in Jewish cultural or religious activities. There are plenty of other organizations – AIPAC affiliates, ZOA, etc, for students who want to engage in that sort of activism. Hillel should be a safe haven where are Jews can come together to celebrate their identities without being unnecessarily divided by politics.
Hillel International president Avraham Infeld said himself in Ha’aretz, “the State of Israel expects the Jewish student to be a soldier in the battle. This is an unjustified expectation that demonstrates a lack of understanding.” Well said, Mr. Infeld. Building unity and a strong Jewish identity is supposedly what Hillel is all about – let’s leave politics to the politicians.

Personally, I find the politicization of Hillel to be extremely problematic. Hillel is by its very nature political — any Jewish student organisation is. The issue is in how they deploy that.
Neturei Karta and other religious anti-zionists are de facto excluded On the other hand, Neturei Karta and other far-right nuts believe that college campuses are sinful abominations, so they’re unlikely to care very much.
Hillel should be a safe haven where are Jews can come together to celebrate their identities without being unnecessarily divided by politics. Hillel should be a safe place where Jews can actually debate and learn about Israel, which is necessarily a place that is linked to Jewish identity. That means more open discussion, not censorship or exclusion of the topic.
On the other hand, it means Hillel’s core competency has to become learning how to facilitate those discussions — between people who disagree. Right now Hillel sucks at that. Jillian is a goof, but how Hillel dealt with her underlines Hillel’s problem.