Why Organize on Campus?
For many students, Jewish or otherwise, the university is where they begin to question the values they were raised with.
On campus, there are ample opportunities to influence your community and make your voice heard. Because there is a decades-long tradition of campus activism, there are often unique resources available to student activists: institutional funding from campus organizations, access to activities fairs for recruitment, and the ability to promote campaigns in student newspapers and other media platforms, to name a few. While you have access to these resources, you ought to take advantage of them!
What Projects are our campus chapters working on?
- Supporting their local SPHR and amplifying Palestinian voices
- Creating Apartheid Free Zones on campus
- Defending Palestinian solidarity work against false accusations of antisemitism
- Building intersectional Jewish spaces and taking part in social justice-based Jewish ritual
- Writing op-eds in their student media
- Implementing their own ideas and projects as progressive Jewish youth!
What can a student group gain by forming an IJV chapter?
Joining IJV allows us to reclaim the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights, and social justice. We have learned these lessons from our own history, and they compel us to speak out.
Your voice and your actions can be amplified greatly with the support of a large national organization boasting over 1000 members and supporters across Canada and large social media following.
The advantages also include:
- connection to wider Palestinian national and international movements
- experience in national grassroots organizing and campaigns
- access to training guides, resources, and workshops for members
- sharing knowledge with elders of anti-apartheid and Palestine solidarity movements
- relationship building with scholars, Jewish and otherwise, who have built tremendous bodies of academic research about the current situation with intellectual and political censorship of Palestinian solidarity work on our university campuses
Getting in Touch with Existing IJV Campus Chapters and Student Groups
IJV Carleton – Instagram
IJV Concordia – Instagram
IJV McGill – mcgill@ijvcanada.org
IJV McMaster
IJV York – york@ijvcanada.org, Facebook
IJV UBC – ubc@ijvcanada.org, Instagram
Joining an existing IJV chapter on your campus
To learn about an existing IJV chapter or to form one, get in touch with the national office by emailing campus@ijvcanada.org, and we will guide you through the next steps, and provide training on the issues relevant to campus organizing as well as basics of organizing.
Starting an IJV campus chapter from scratch
To start your own IJV campus chapter, first, try to find one or more like-minded people to share the initial work. Advertise and recruit by posting flyers around campus and on social media, writing in your school paper, and making class announcements. It could be especially useful to make class announcements in Jewish studies or Middle East studies classes and post on Jewish campus groups’ social media pages. If you know students in other organizations, be it either social justice-focused or Jewish organizations, have them announce your meeting on their own.
Is there an orientation week or activities fair coming up? IJV national can help with materials, so do not hesitate to get in touch with them beforehand. Follow up on the activities fair by emailing or messaging an invitation for your first meeting to your new mailing list. It’s important to keep the momentum going at the beginning of the school year and recruit as early as possible while new students are keen to get involved in student life, since later in the semester exams and midterms will get in the way of organizing.
Student Group Criteria and Rights for IJV Campus Chapters
- An IJV Chapter can be formed by a minimum of three members – people who identify as Jewish. Supporters, or people who do not identify as Jewish, are welcome to join as well.
- Student chapters are encouraged but not obliged to appoint a representative to the national Chapter Council.
- Student groups can take public positions beyond the scope of IJV’s mandate, so long as they do not contradict the IJV General Principles.
- Student groups can issue their own statements and press releases, so long as they do not contradict IJV’s national positions. Get in touch with IJV’s communications and media lead for assistance if needed!
- The campus chapter must agree to work within the IJV Canada principles.
- Campus chapters may participate in their local chapters and any national action groups that interest them.