{"id":57863,"date":"2017-12-06T18:05:08","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T16:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=57863"},"modified":"2017-12-01T09:12:12","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T07:12:12","slug":"06-09-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=57863","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Provocative\u2019 Panel on \u2018Exploitation\u2019 of Antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Anti-Israel Activists at University of Massachusetts Hold \u2018Provocative\u2019 Panel on \u2018Exploitation\u2019 of Antisemitism Amid Nationwide Campaign<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiri Moshe<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Joseph Levine speaking at an event co-hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on November 29, 2017. Photo: JVP\/Facebook.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Anti-Israel activists held a panel on the \u201cexploitation of antisemitism\u201d at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass) on Wednesday \u2014 the latest effort in a campaign to promote a book on the topic by a fringe Jewish group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The event \u2014 sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine, along with multiple departments \u2014 featured UMass philosophy professor Joseph Levine and communications professor Sut Jhally, as well as Vijay Prashad, who teaches South Asian history and international studies at Trinity College.<\/span><\/p>\n

Levine is an active member of JVP, which promotes the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. BDS \u2014 described as \u201cthe most prominent effort to undermine Israel\u2019s existence\u201d by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) \u2014 has also been praised by Jhally, who served as the executive producer of the film \u201cThe Occupation of the American Mind.\u201d The film is promoted as an \u201canalysis of Israel\u2019s decades-long battle for the hearts, minds, and tax dollars of the American people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Prashad is similarly an advisory board member of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a leading driver behind the call for BDS. During Wednesday\u2019s panel he claimed that \u201cthe real anti-Semites, namely the fascists, who go by the name alt-right, get a free pass while those who are against anti-Semitism and who are critics of Israeli state policy are labeled anti-Semites,\u201d according to a report in the Daily Collegian student newspaper.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jhally likewise called antisemitism \u201ca very, very effective silencing mechanism,\u201d which is used to distract \u201cfrom what the state of Israel, not Jews, what the state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Levine, in turn, took the opportunity to denounce the premises underlying the State Department\u2019s definition of antisemitism \u2014 including that \u201cJewish people constitute a nationality and not a religious group,\u201d and that \u201cPalestine is the historical homeland of the people who now call themselves Jews,\u201d the Daily Collegian reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

The panel \u2014 the latest in a string of events on college campuses to promote JVP\u2019s controversial book \u201cOn Antisemitism: Solidarity and the Struggle for Justice\u201d \u2014 drew criticism from some members of UMass\u2019 Jewish community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jonathan Skolnik, professor of German-Jewish Studies, called JVP\u2019s event \u201cprovocative and negative\u201d and organized a counter panel to take place concurrently.<\/span><\/p>\n

Titled \u201cAntisemitism and Islamophobia: Historical Perspectives and Civic Engagement Against Hate in 2017,\u201d the event featured Skolnik as well as Jay Berkovitz, chair of UMass\u2019 Judaic and Near Eastern Studies department, and Susannah Heschel, professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI, like many Jewish (and non-Jewish) students and faculty were hurt and upset that five academic departments at a serious university would lend their names and co-sponsorship to a provocative, one-sided panel on \u2018antisemitism,\u2019 co-sponsored by controversial political groups, and featuring three professors with similar radical political views but zero scholars of antisemitism,\u201d Skolnik told The Algemeiner.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn response,\u201d he added, \u201ccolleagues and I decided to do what I believe is the best thing that universities can do: invite informed researchers and practitioners with diverse perspectives to discuss important subjects, for the benefit of students and the community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The event was attended by some 50 people, including \u201cstudents, community members, and also a few members of JVP,\u201d Skolnik said. \u201cJewish students in attendance said afterwards that they were happy and grateful to see someone like Susannah Heschel respond to their questions about how one can engage today as simultaneously a progressive, a feminist, and a Zionist who supports human rights for all and two states for two peoples.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The panels at UMass come on the heels of a high-profile event promoting \u201cOn Antisemitism\u201d at The New School in New York on Tuesday, which included Women\u2019s March co-organizer Linda Sarsour and leading JVP activists. Smaller renditions of that event \u2014 which was condemned by the ADL, Simon Wiesenthal Center, the editorial boards of the New York Post and Jerusalem Post, and a petition signed by over 20,000 people \u2014 have been held on multiple campuses, from Stanford University to SOAS University of London.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kenneth Waltzer \u2014 executive director of the anti-BDS Academic Engagement Network, who wrote a critical analysis of JVP\u2019s book \u2014 told The Algemeiner that \u201cJVP knows little about anti-Semitism and engages the subject in a bait and switch strategy\u201d in order to claim that it is used \u201cto silence progressive pro-Palestinian voices.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is rather the case that forms of left and right anti-Semitism are blossoming in the present and should be causes of growing concern on campus and off,\u201d Waltzer observed.<\/span><\/p>\n

ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt criticized \u201cOn Antisemitism\u201d in an op-ed published Tuesday, and noted that the work \u201chas been accompanied by a nationwide \u2018tour\u2019 of JVP members who are trying to publicize it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reading the \u2018book,\u2019 we want to address one of its core claims: anti-Semitism can never be linked to criticism of Israel,\u201d Greenblatt wrote. \u201cThis is nonsense. You can dress it up as political theory, but when an ideology is obsessed with denying one group of people the rights that are offered to all others around the world, that is intolerance, plain and simple.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Anti-Israel Activists at University of Massachusetts Hold \u2018Provocative\u2019 Panel on \u2018Exploitation\u2019 of Antisemitism Amid Nationwide Campaign Shiri Moshe Joseph Levine speaking at an event co-hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on November 29, 2017. Photo: JVP\/Facebook. Anti-Israel activists held a panel on the \u201cexploitation of antisemitism\u201d at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57863"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57878,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57863\/revisions\/57878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}