As momentum around campus BDS continued to build over this pastyear, IJAN offered strategic defense support to divestment campaigns. LastSeptember, the student network published an Open Letter to Members of University Communities around theWorld calling on Jews ofconscience to join campus BDS campaigns and stand firmly against the upsurge ofIslamaphobia at universities, to which we're still collecting signatures. IJAN activists in the Bay Area were directly involved in UC Berkeley'sdivestment campaign and also stood in support of the divestment efforts at UCSan Diego.  While these struggles have not yet been successful in winningdivestment from Israeli apartheid, together they served as an incredibleinspiration to Palestine-solidarity student activists across the country andcontributed significantly to shifting the terms of national debate on the stateof Israel. The overwhelming success of the student referendum in support ofdivestment at Evergreen was another inspiring moment of the past year and ishelping to sustain the momentum generated by all these efforts.  IJAN'sstudent network is in the process of accessing the current moment in campus BDSwork and determining how we can most strategically support this work asanti-Zionist Jews.  We welcome the participation of others interested tojoin us in these efforts.

In the fall of 2009, IJAN organizers attended the Campus BDS Conference at Hampshire College, the first US campus to divest from companies involved in the Israeli occupation. The conference was an inspiring gathering of students from more than 40 colleges and universities, and Palestine solidarity movement activists, working together to expand and solidify Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) work on campuses and in our communities across the U.S. Hampshire organizers shared lessons from their divestment campaign and looked to the work ahead of them to maintain divestment and grow the explicit commitment of the campus to Palestinian liberation. At the conference, IJAN organizers facilitated the following workshops in partnership with Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine: "White Anti-Racism and Jewish Anti-Zionism: Building Alliance and Joint Struggle," "Dealing with Opposition and Backlash," and "Building and Sustaining Organizations." IJAN organizers were inspired by and excited to be a part of the Hampshire conference, and to have this opportunity to work towards making the national campus BDS movement more connected, informed, and accountable to the Palestinian call and movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.

Severalscholar-activists represented IJAN's Academic Work Group at the US Assembly ofJews Confronting Israeli Apartheid and Racism, where we attended and directedworkshops, participated in roundtable discussions, and met as academics growingour network within IJAN and across anti-imperialist movements.  Currently,the IJAN Academic Work Group is collecting material for an anthology of reflections, essays, speeches, presentations and creative work presented at or emerging out of the US Assembly of Jews.  The Call for Papers is attached and downloadable by choosing "reed more" at the bottom of this text. Please send submissions to: academic.network@ijsn.net.

The IJANAcademic Work Group will hold its first meeting at the Critical Ethnic StudiesConference at UC Irvine in February 2011.  Please see the IJAN academicnetwork's statement of purpose in the entry directly below.