Should faculty have the academic freedom to deny academic freedom to others? That is what eight UC Berkeley faculty are now demanding with their vigorous rejection (Daily Californian, Feb. 19) of a statement issued by the 10 chancellors of...
A Deeply Unsettling Moment
Jewish history is replete with stories of expulsion and exodus. Knowledge of the Holocaust includes the story of immense difficulties European Jews faced in finding open doors to flee and find haven. Even after the...
Barring Students From Study in Israel
It has been a rough few weeks for American students who wish to study in Israel. An opponent of the Israeli state refused to write a recommendation for a University of Michigan student who sought...
A Response at UM that is Not a Response
An associate professor in the American Culture program at the University of Michigan refused to write a recommendation for a student, Abigail Ingber, who seeks to study in Tel Aviv. John Cheney-Lippold informed the student,...
Has BDS Transformed the Israel-Palestine Debate?
In an important essay-length survey, “BDS: How a Controversial Non-Violent Movement Has Transformed the Israeli-Palestinian Debate,” in the Guardian (August 14, 2018), Nathan Thrall, Director of the International Crisis Group’s Arab-Israeli Project, argues that the Boycott, Divestment,...
Wrestling with the New Nation-State Law
“Everything You’ve Heard About Israel’s Nation State Bill is Wrong,” David Hazony observed recently in the Forward, calling out criticism of the Basic law legislation passed in July 2018 as so much “prefabricated outrage” from American...
From ‘intersectionality’ to the exclusion of Jewish students: BDS makes a worrying turn on US campuses
During the fall semester, when little was happening on the anti-Israel Hard Left on American campuses, we could have been forgiven for thinking that perhaps the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement had slowed. But...
Thinking about 1948
Last month, protestors in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement who disrupted a Students Supporting Israel event at UCLA shouted the following clarifying words: “We don’t want two states. We want 48!” They were affirming...
No Real Scholarship or Introspection Here: JVPers on Anti-Semitism
The screed Shaul Magid offers in Tikkun Magazine (November 30, 2017) defending the recent panel on “Antisemitism and the Struggle for Social Justice” held at the New School on November 28, 2017, staffed by Linda...
University of Michigan Students Debate Divestment Again
Once again, a student group at the University of Michigan has put forth a resolution to the Central Student Government asking the university Board of Regents to divest from several companies “that violate Palestinian human...