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Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
3

“I share the outrage of Jews and Zionists who recognize how antisemitism has infiltrated the academy and progressive politics in multiple and worrying ways. Even though these activists may vigorously deny the label of antisemitism, at the very least they benefit from deeply ingrained antisemitic attitudes that assume Jews (or the Jew-writ-large of the State of Israel) are inherently powerful, wealthy, aggressive, shadowy, clannish, and untrustworthy. With little of the intellectual honesty and empathy they claim to embody, many anti-Israel activists advance their cause with the aid of these dangerous tropes, and have enjoyed unparalleled success in singling out Israel for rebuke as a result. As a consequence, not only are Israelis dehumanized in deeply repulsive ways by a supposedly humane academy/progressive political class, but BDS activism in the far left has become one of the most effective vehicles for reifying and spreading calumnies and discrimination against Jews. This state of affairs has already led to violence against Jewish students on campus and the exclusion of valuable Jewish voices in progressive causes that have no clear, obvious link to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As a Jew, a Zionist, a progressive, a professor, and a campus rabbi, I am deeply worried about these trends and what they mean for my students.”

Source: Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, Jewish Waterville

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

“In the decades since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, many non-Jewish Germans worked to erase the stain on their nation’s honor that the wartime Nazi regime had created. They repaired crumbling Jewish cemeteries, gave tours of their towns’ Jewish past, and investigated local Jewish history, often doing their work without pay or recognition.

Arthur Obermayer decided that these noble Germans deserved to be recognized.”

Read more at The Jewish Week.

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
2

“I read web and social media and it’s shocking how liberal Jews (I consider myself one, recall) so quick to righteously protest the sufferings of just about everyone else in the world, rarely have expressed any sorrow for the knifing of Jewish children. Sadly they seem to have been bullied by the BDS types, by the social media sewer of anti-Semitism, the Shylockization of Netanyahu. By the ‘moral equivalence’ ‘cycle of violence’ narrative. Can’t feel bad about murdered Jews if a right wing government’s in power. To the extent that if a liberal Jew speaks up for the murdered at a dinner party he is suddenly Sheldon Adelson. Or the Jew in the Annie Hall dinner scene abruptly finding himself clothed in Hasidic garb (not that there’s anything wrong with that).”

Source: Ron Rosenbaum, “Thinking the Unthinkable: A Lamentation for the State of Israel” (Tablet)

Words of the Week

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

“The voices of Jews and others whose positions are rooted in the right of Israel to exist as a state have been silenced. Following my remarks at the BDS round table, there was just one comment from the audience validating some of my points, but I received many private expressions of support and appreciation for my ‘courage.’ Several people told me it would be damaging to their careers to openly express opposition to the resolution.”

Source: Janet L. Freedman, “For the Women’s Studies Association, the BDS Vote Was Over Before It Began” (Forward)