Universities and antisemitism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There have been increasing reports of anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses across North America, Europe, and Australia.
Laurie Zoloth, former director of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, has written of her distress at walking across campus past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, and posters equating Zionism with racism and Jews with Nazis, turning the campus into a "Weimar Republic with brownshirts you cannot control." [1]
Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, has written how two students of his wondered whether it was true that 4,000 Jews had failed to show up for work at the World Trade Center on September 11. "The worst crackpot notions that circulate around the Middle East are also roaming around America," he writes, "and if that wasn't bad enough, students are spreading the gibberish. Students!" [2]
Contents |
[edit] Australia
In Australia, Daniel Wyner of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, says that the "vilification we feel as students on campus ... [is] coming almost entirely from the left." Grahame Leonard, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry], says July 2006 had the most anti-Semitic incidents since records began in 1945, and that many of the incidents were on campus. In Sydney, some Jewish students have started to wear hats over their kippahs. Deon Kamien, Victorian president of the Union of Jewish Students, told The Age: "It's not something I can put in words. A lot of students who would feel very comfortable wearing a kippah or T-shirt with Hebrew words on it now feel they are being targeted as Jews — not supporters of Israel, but Jews. When they walk past socialist stalls (on campus) they are called f---ing Jews." [3]
[edit] Canada
In Canada, a September 2002 speech by former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia University in Montreal had to be cancelled after protestors smashed furniture and windows before it began. Manfred Gerstenfeld writes that the situation at Concordia was so tense that the university had to impose a three-month moratorium on all Middle East related events in 2002, and a Montreal judge issued an injunction against a lecture by left-wing parliamentarian Svend Robinson. An advertisement in the Globe and Mail on December 17, 2002, signed by 100 people, said that Canadian Jewish students are traumatized by on-campus anti-Semitism and dare not speak out in support of Israel or Judaism. [4]
[edit] France
In France, Patrick Klugman, President of the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), wrote in Le Figaro: "On some university campuses like Nanterre, Villetaneuse and Jussieu, the climate has become very difficult for Jews. In the name of the Palestinian cause, they are castigated as if they were Israeli soldiers! We hear 'death to the Jews' during demonstrations which are supposed to defend the Palestinian cause. Last April, our office was the target of a Molotov cocktail. As a condition for condemning this attack, the lecturers demanded that the UEJF declare a principled position against Israel!" [4]
[edit] United States
Violent incidents have been recorded by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on college campuses across the U.S. [5] An April 9, 2002, rally held by the Muslim Student Association at SFSU displayed posters bearing a picture of soup cans reading "Made in Israel" on the label, listing the contents as "Palestinian Children Meat," with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as the manufacturer, and the words "slaughtered according to Jewish Rites under American license." [6] [7] A month later, a pro-Israel rally saw pro-Palestinian students armed with whistles and bull horns corner Jewish students, spit on them, and shout: "Too bad Hitler didn't finish the job." [8] Supporters of David Duke have allegedly distributed flyers protesting "Israeli genocide" on the University of California at San Diego campus, and Holocaust denier Bradley R. Smith ran an opinion piece in the Berkeley student newspaper condemning Israel's "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians. [8]
[edit] United Kingdom
In the UK, the "Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism" reported that the far-right British National Party says it is active on 15 British campuses.
The report also states that "when left wing or pro-Palestinian discourse is manipulated and used as a vehicle for anti-Jewish language and themes, the anti-Semitism is harder to recognize and define ..." [9]
The inquiry heard that University College, London invited members of the Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir to give presentations, although it has been banned from several countries because of its anti-Semitism. Hizb-ut-Tahrir has also been active at Queen Mary, University of London; Kingston University; and UCE Birmingham. [10]
The report describes how the University of Manchester students' union proposed a motion in 2002 that anti-Zionism was not anti-Semitism, and that Israeli goods should be boycotted. During the voting phase, a leaflet from the General Union of Palestinian Students, quoting a neo-Nazi forgery entitled "Prophecy of Benjamin Franklin in Regard of the Jewish Race," was handed out to students lining up to vote. [10] The leaflet described Jews as vampires, and said that if they were not expelled from the United States, they would "enslave the country and destroy its economy." [11] When the motion was defeated, a brick was thrown through the window of one Jewish student residence while a poster with the words "Slaughter the Jews" was stuck to its front door, and a knife was stuck in the door of another. [11]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Zoloth, Laurie. "Fear and Loathing at San Francisco State" in Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004, pp. 1-3.
- ^ Gitlin, Todd. "The Rough Beast Returns" in Rosenbaum, Ron. Those who forget the past. Random House, 2004, p. 264.
- ^ Zwartz, Barney & Morton, Adam. [http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/an-unholy-alliance/2006/09/03/1157222010013.html "An unholy alliance," The Age, September 4, 2006.
- ^ a b Gerstenfeld, Manfred. "The Academic Boycott Against Israel", Jewish Political Studies Review 15:3-4 (Fall 2003).
- ^ Anti-Defamation League, "Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Events on Campus", May 14, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006.
- ^ Letter from SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan to California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed, SFSU website, July 25, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006.
- ^ Richman, Josh. "ADL: Antisemitic Incidents Soar in N. California", The Forward, April 4, 2003, accessed January 9, 2006.
- ^ a b "The Battle for the American Campus", Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania, August 1, 2002, accessed January 9, 2006.
- ^ "Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism"PDF, September 2006, p.38.
- ^ a b "Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism"PDF, September 2006, p.39.
- ^ a b "Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism"PDF, September 2006, p.40.
