The point is; Trump's 48 billion ultimatum to universities: Drop Israel boycotts or lose funding The memorandum defines a "discriminatory forbidden boycott" as "refusing to engage, severing commercial relations, or restricting commercial relationships specifically with Israeli companies." by Dudi Kogan Published on 04-22-2025 11:50 Last modified: 04-22-2025 12:38 Trump's 48 billion ultimatum to universities: Drop Israel boycotts or lose funding Reuters/Nicholas Pfosi Demonstrators rally on Cambridge Common in a protest organized by the City of Cambridge calling on Harvard leadership to resist interference at the university by the federal government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 12, 2025 | Photo: Reuters/Nicholas Pfosi The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a federal agency that regulates medical research in the United States, published a memorandum on Monday that conditions research grants on not boycotting Israel and eliminating all DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs. Enlarged Prostate Has Nothing To Do With Age: Just Stop Doing This One Common Thing Enlarged Prostate Has Nothing To Do With Age: Just Stop Doing This One Common Thing Natural Healthy Way This Game is So Beautiful. If You Have a Computer it's a Must-Have. This Game is So Beautiful. If You Have a Computer it's a Must-Have. Raid: Shadow Legends According to the memorandum, the agency "reserves the right to cancel financial aid and return all funds" if grant recipients do not comply with federal guidelines prohibiting diversity and equality research and "forbidden boycotts." The memorandum defines a "discriminatory forbidden boycott" as "refusing to engage, severing commercial relations, or restricting commercial relationships specifically with Israeli companies or with companies conducting business in Israel or with Israel, or those authorized, licensed, or incorporated under Israeli law." According to the announcement, "By accepting the grant, recipients confirm that they are not engaged in and will not engage in a discriminatory forbidden boycott during the grant period." Demonstrators take part in an "Emergency Rally: Stand with Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza," amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 14, 2023 (Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder) REUTERS The new policy will apply to "local recipients of new grants, renewals, additions, or continuations" issued from April 21, as stated in the announcement. The NIH is the world's largest public funder of medical research. It awards approximately 60,000 grants annually to nearly 3,000 universities and hospitals. More than 80% of its annual budget of $48 billion is directed toward these research grants. The battle against DEI programs, which the Trump administration views as discriminatory, along with the fight against anti-Israeli demonstrations and actions, is also driving the American administration's recent moves against elite universities in the US. Officially, boycotting Israel in American institutions is not widespread, but anti-Israeli student associations and faculty lead petitions and calls to boycott Israel. Some institutions accepted some of these students' demands during the wave of anti-Israeli protests throughout the war. Harvard University recently decided not to comply with the administration's demands, which could cause the university to lose $9 billion in grants and other financial transfers. The university responded yesterday with a lawsuit against the administration. In a letter to the Harvard community, university president Alan Garber argued that the administration's recent escalation against the prestigious institution "has serious real-world implications for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the status of American higher education in the world." Credit rating agencies have warned that the administration's actions could lead to damage to the financial strength of these institutions, which hold enormous budgets.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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