A group of pro-Israel students at UCLA are calling on a scheduled Nov. 27 panel on anti-Semitism to discuss the issue of anti-Zionism and how it translates to anti-Semitism.
The panel, which is titled “Anti-Semitism Past & Present: Reflections in the Aftermath of Pittsburgh” and is scheduled for 5 p.m., is being put on by UCLA’s Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, and will consist of UCLA’s David Myers and Brenda Stevenson, USC’s Josh Kun and Aziza Hasan, from the Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, as panelists; UCLA Vice Chancellor Jerry Kang will moderate the discussion.
Justin Feldman, the president UCLA’s Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter; Darion Ouglian, the president of Bruins for Israel; and Hillel co-presidents Jackie Schaeffer and Noy Anisman wrote in a letter to the event organizers and panelists that they should split “half of the panel discussion to classic forms of anti-Semitism (religious/race-based) and half to growing forms of anti-Semitism which emerges organically from the delegitimization and dehumanization of Israel” and acknowledge that anti-Semitism comes in many different “identities, political orientations, faiths, or ethnicities.”
“Our concerns are warranted by the fact of anti-Semitism being expressed today across cultures, religions, ethnicities, nations, and politics,” the students wrote. “This hateful phenomenon is why it is inherently possible for leading members of ‘progressive movements’ such as the Women’s March’s Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory to endorse anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, and shortly get a re-tweet in support, from David Duke of the KKK.”
They added that this “is why the silencing and disenfranchisement of Jewish students on university campuses via the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), whose leaders deny Jews the right to self-determination, are given normalcy.”
“Especially amid recent tragedies, it is encouraging to know that you have arranged your diverse voices to delve into this contested issue,” the students wrote. “We trust that as speakers you will not shy away from exposing and denouncing all forms of anti-Semitism that threaten Jewish life and freedom. Whether being the white supremacist shooting at synagogue members in Pittsburgh or Hamas missile attacks at Israeli civilians in Israel, or the discriminatory silencing of Jewish and Zionist voices by defamatory organizations at UCLA, we need your voice. Indeed, dismissal of anti-Semitism anywhere is a promotion of anti-Semitism everywhere.”
Feldman told the Journal in a phone interview that they viewed the event as the administration’s way of saying that everything is “A-OK” for Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus.
“There are actually many issues that they’ve swept under the rug that need to be talked about,” Feldman said, adding that UCLA hasn’t publicly stated any disciplinary measures for individuals involved in the May disruption of an SSI event as an example.
Judea Pearl, chancellor professor of computer science at UCLA, National Academy of Sciences member and Daniel Pearl Foundation president, told the Journal in an email that unless such balance is provided at the panel, “the staging of this panel would appear as a sinister attempt to divert attention from UCLA’s unwillingness to deal with its own problem of anti-Semitism which stems, almost exclusively, from anti-Zionist hostilities that are yet to be denounced by the administration.”
Yoram Cohen, a UCLA chemical and molecular bioengineering professor and director of the Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, told the Journal in a phone interview that while he doesn’t know the specifics of what the panelists will discuss, the recent shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference at UCLA makes the students’ position understandable.
“We should realize that we should combat anti-Semitism in whatever form it takes, whether it’s anti-Israel activities that are specifically because it is against the Jewish people and the people in Israel, or whether it’s anti-Zionism, which masquerades as anti-Semitism,” Cohen said, “so we should be very careful, and I hope that this is part of the discussion that will take place.”
The university did not respond to the Journal’s request for comment at publication time.
