Few schools offer study abroad program possibilities as extensive as those of the University of Michigan, which includes programs in more than 130 foreign countries, from Argentina to Zambia. To participate, students must complete an application, attend...
Member Writings and Interviews
Ivory Tower Bigots
Anti-Zionism is a form of racism like any other: The erasing of a nation’s experience, the denial of their right to speak. Often it comes twinned with the old anti-Semitic gestures. Jews are cruel, enjoying...
This Is the Real Game Israel Is Playing With the BDS Movement. It’s Terrifying
Lara Alqasem, the American student seeking to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, currently detained by Israeli authorities who refused to honor her visa, is the subject of a file on the highly controversial right-wing Canary Mission...
The Unprincipled Boycott of Israel
John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan, has been the subject of withering criticism of late, but I’m grateful to him. Yes, he shouldn’t have refused to write a recommendation for...
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,...
Fighting Anti-Zionism Slowly, Quietly, and Well
In June, I reviewed the superb essay collection, Anti-Zionism on Campus. In it, Andrew Pessin and Doron Ben-Atar collect testimonies and reflections from faculty and students who have found themselves denounced, ostracized, and sometimes under investigation because they’ve...
Jeremy Corbyn’s Ironically Ahistorical Anti-Semitism
The past two years have brought a seemingly unending stream of revelations about disparaging comments made by the British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, about Jews, Zionists, and Israel. But in recent days has come the lowest...
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,...
Bad Therapy
Imagine yourself at the therapist’s office. “Doc,” you say, “there are invisible forces pressing down on me. I’m too weak to save myself!” The therapist replies, “You’re right. The danger is everywhere.” You ask, “What...
New study: BDS activists hostile toward Jewish students, not just Israel
For many years we’ve been documenting anti-Israel activity on U.S. university and college campuses, typically part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and carried out by student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine....