Blind Spot is a wake-up call turned rallying cry from students facing and fighting antisemitism on their campuses, in their own words.
I'm off the fence about Israel's war, here's why...
Cary Nelson is Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. He is the author or editor of 36 books, including six about antisemitism. Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles was published this April. He was president of the national AAUP from 2006-2012.
Recent webinar from Dave Rich, "Antisemitism in the UK since the October 7 Attack"
Podcast: Ruth Wisse on the Explosion of Anti-Israel Protests on Campus
The scholar and frequent commentator puts the protests and protestors in their proper context.
Canadian Antisemitism Education Association presents David Bernstein, “Does Radical Social Justice Ideology Fuel Antisemitism?”
ISCA Indiana University Alvin Rosenfeld interviews Jarred Tanny: Antisemitism in the Academy and the Fate of Jewish Studies: An Insider’s View.
Ambassador Oren: US Jews Feel Abandoned by the State of Israel
Israel Palestine: Defining Collective Identity
Shalem Institute experts in Israel explore why so many American Jews feel that Israel has lost its moral compass and is seen as an apartheid state.
Christiane Amanpour interviews Deborah Lipstadt on PBS. She is currently the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, with the rank of Ambassador. She is an imminent historian.
Eddie Marsan, a non-Jewish British actor and street-smart comedian, talks about his rough and tumble youth in a neighborhood where Jews, Arabs and Muslims lived side by side.
Thane Rosenbaum, a law professor at Touro College, places “Occupation, Apartheid and Ethnic Cleansing” in the historical and legal framework of antisemitism. It’s especially timely.
CAFI sponsored a dialogue between Palestinian Arab leader Khalid Abu Awwad and Israeli Rabbi Yakov Nagen, who shared experiences as they moved their communities to sit down at the same table, “From Other to Brother.”
Combating Anti-Semitism and Protecting Free Speech on Campus. Academic Engagement Network interviews with Joe Cohn, Alyza Lewin, Benjamin Ryberg. The Executive Order (EO) on combating antisemitism passed in December 2019 links the IHRA definition of antisemitism to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin. The EO obligates universities to respond.
Kenneth Marcus, former Assistant Secretary of Higher Education for Civil Rights and Chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights, speaks about “The Law, Jew-Hatred, and Higher Education.”
Tammi Roseman-Benjamin, the co-founder of AMCHA, assails the results of ethnic studies and DEI programs in California’s universities.
“Ethnic Studies and the Jews: Current Developments in K-12 and in the Universities.”
Those who challenge their “ethnic” or “racial” categories or views are accused of rejecting social justice.
William Jacobson: Boycotted for Telling the Truth.
The Cornell Law professor was interviewed by Jewish News Syndicate.
He was being attacked by fellow faculty members and students and teachers’ unions for his views on critical race theory and other progressive views.
He responded by creating his own web site, Criticalrace.org.
He founded https://legalinsurrection.com and was a founding member of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance.
Using Legal Tools to Combat Campus Antisemitism.
Alyza Lewin, President of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights. She founded EMET Online (Endowment for Middle East Truth), which functions on Capitol Hill. Alyza has argued before US Supreme Court.
In this interview, she documents the experience of Jewish, Israeli and sympathetic students, faculty and administrators on American campuses.
She seeks possible legal and regulatory remedies to protect them while safeguarding First Amendment rights. She also explores the role of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs in promoting prejudice against Jews.
Free Speech and equality on Campuses: Some Principles and Recommendations.
Academic Engagement Network interviewed Professor Dale Carpenter, an expert on constitutional law. He urges discussion and debate, not censorship of objectionable speech or speakers. Yet serious disruption of speech should not be allowed because it hampers the free exchange of ideas. There is no constitutionally protected right to shout down a speaker because a “heckler’s veto” makes it hard for the speaker to get a point across. This is a rich, timely discussion.
Herzog / Toynbee Debate. 1961 at McGill University, Montreal, a deeply fascinating debate between a famous antisemitic British historian, Arnold Toynbee, and the Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Yaakov Herzog.
100th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center in 2017.
Participants included CUNY professors. Moderator Elissa Bemporad (GC Queens College) was able to weave the discussions together to provide a rigorous historical background.
Sara Reguer (Brooklyn College), Ronald Zweig (New York University), KC Johnson (GC, Brooklyn College), David Brodsky (GC, Brooklyn College), Louis Fishman (GC, Brooklyn College), Ilan Troen (Brandeis/Ben-Gurion Universities)
“This Isn’t Europe: How israel’s Mizrahi Community is Redefining Israeli Identity,” Academic Engagement Network interviews Matti Friedman.
Matti gives a rich picture of the diversity that constitutes the Israeli population, some of whom are not Jewish and don’t practice Judaism but who are not Palestinian Arabs.
50% of Israel’s population is of Mizrahi descent, from Arab countries and North African countries.
The David Project: The Forgotten Refugees:
Prof Yisrael Knohl discusses the history of the 1,000,000 Jews in North Africa, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco, who fled to Israel around 1950.
These are the mizrahim who had lived in these areas since before the advent of Islam.
Cary Nelson talks frankly, “Not in Kansas Anymore: Academic Freedom in Palestinian Universities.”
Israeli professor Tauber, an expert on the origins of Arab nationalism, performed in-depth research on what’s commonly known as the “Deir Yassin massacre,” during the War of Independence (AKA Nakba).
Natan Sharansky and Gil Troy are interviewed, “Freedom in the Face of Tyranny.” After leaving the USSR for Israel, he wrote, Never Alone: Prison, Politics and My People.
Matti Freedman says, “This Isn’t Europe: How Israel’s Mizrahi Community is Redefining Israeli Identity.”
Yisrael Knoll identifies “The Forgotten Refugees,” the Mizrahi Jews of North Africa and the Middle East who fled to Israel in the 1950s, as well as the Russian and Ethiopian Jews who arrived in the 1990s. They comprise 50% of Israel’s population.
CUNY Graduate center hosted a discussion about the Balfour Declaration and its sequel, the founding of Israel. Eminent historians answered audience questions.
Yaakov Herzog, an Israeli Ambassador to Canada, debated historian Arnold Toynbee about the morality of the founding of the state of Israel. Although this debate occurred in 1961, it is ever so current.
Shmuley Boteach joined a debate at Oxford University whose topic was, “Who’s the Bigger Obstacle to Peace, Hamas or Israel?”
Dennis Prager, a talk-show host and author, and Shmuley Boteach, joins a debate at Oxford University whose topic is, “Who’s the Bigger Obstacle to Peace, Hamas or Israel?”
Jeffrey Herf briefs us on the Arab, British, Russian, American and United Nations diplomatic jousting that set the framework for contemporary antisemitism and Palestinian nationalism.
Normalization Without Borders. Academic Engagement Network hosted Einat Wilf on March 21, 2021. Wilf describes the Abraham Accords August 2021 as a game changer.
Representatives from the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan were suddenly talking officially with Israel.
As a journalist, she was present when economic agreements, diplomatic agreements, tourism, embassies, and flags were discussed in friendly zoom sessions.
Some representatives said, “We want to learn about Zionism because we feel we’ve been lied to our whole lives.”
Her comments are especially valuable because the mainstream press did not cover the sessions and their aftermath in any depth.
Einat Wilf: Arab Leaders Responsible for Deaths of Millions of European Jews.
Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf discuss their new book, The War of Return.
Its in-depth research starts with the creation of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is responsible for supporting the descendants of all Palestinians who left Israel when it declared independence on May 14, 1948.
Einat Wilf takes a fresh look at “Western Anti-Zionism and Arab Anti-Zionism.”
David Bernstein talks about social justice ideology supports antisemitism. “Radical Social Justice Ideology Fuels Antisemitism.”
Jarred Tanny wrote The Seinfeld Talmud.
A professor of Jewish history, he uses humor to shed light on what’s happening in Jewish Studies at CUNY. “Antisemitism in the Academy and the Fate of Jewish Studies: An Insider’s View.”
Magda Teter looks back on “Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism.”
Marlene Gallner talks about Jew-hatred in our own time, “Virtuous Antisemitism: What Jean Améry Can Teach Us About Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism on the Left.”
Jeffrey Herf reviews “Myths and Realities about Israel’s Establishment: Their Relevance for Discussions of Contemporary Antisemitism.”
Ben-dor Yemeni, an Israeli attorney and journalist, asks who’s to be believed, Israelis or Palestinian Arabs, and gives examples to support his views. His talk is labelled, “Industry of Lies.”
Gil Troy uses the primal term “Jew Hatred” so we can ask whether an action or viewpoint is about hating Jews or not. If it is, he offers, “A New Model for Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Activism on Campus.”
Bernard Lewis was an eminent British scholar of Middle Eastern history. Drawing on his knowledge of Arabic, Turkish and Hebrew, he delved into the history of the Ottoman Empire, where Jews lived amongst Arabs and Muslims for 400 years. It’s a good starting point for understanding today’s Arab and Muslim nationalism and politics.
Martin Kramer delves into why Bernard Lewis, who wrote “Semites & Anti-Semites,” and was an eminent scholar of the Middle East, decided to tackle modern currents of antisemitism. While this sounds arcane, he shines a lot of sunlight onto the current outbreak of antisemitism.
Dara Horn. author of People Love Dead Jews, urges us to learn some Jewish history so our discussions with people with different viewpoints can be factually based.
”The Mainstreaming of Antisemitism: How Should We Respond?” Prominent journalists Bari Weiss, Bret Stephens and Simone Rodan-Benzaquen urge us to listen to the voice of the individual, not the voice of the mob. Without fact-based learning, they warn that discussions may devolve into shouting matches or worse.
They explore the origins of the current slogan, “Zionism = Racism,” which started with the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 in 1975, titled “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Although it was revoked in 1991, the journalists lead us next to the UN sponsored “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances.” This in turn gave rise to a 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, which was the precursor to the point of view that Israel is committing “apartheid” against Palestinians. The 1975 resolution gave impetus to the anti-Israel BDS movement in 2005. In 2024 it has been echoed by the International Court of justice’s lawsuit against Israel.
David Brodsky and Ilya Bratman talk about how criticism of Israel can devolve into antisemitism. David draws on his experiences at Brooklyn’s CUNY campus. Ilya uses his teaching at CUNY’s Baruch College, where he serves as Hillel Director, and as a Hillel leader at other CUNY campuses.
The Tikvah Fund’s “Courage on Campus” interviews three young Jewish men and women who explain what they’ve done to speak out against antisemitism on their university campuses and beyond.
Irwin Cotler, a retired Canadian politician and attorney, urges us to read and learn more so we can confidently discuss issues with those of different viewpoints.
Natan Sharansky was imprisoned in the USSR for nine years because the Soviets identified him as a Jew. He kept his sanity and identity by resisting his interlocuters at every point.
Palestinian Media Watch: How the PA Creates Teenage Terrorism, by Itamar Marcus, speaking at Australian Jewish Association, October 6, 2021