Interview with Vassar Professor Joshua Schreier

NOTE: Somehow this guy is in charge of Middle East Studies? Scroll down in the paper (LINK) to read the interview. Thoughts? Mine are not nice, so I'll refrain from sharing for the moment. 

CLICK HERE FOR THE VASSAR CHRONICLE ARTICLE


Other hair raising Vassar Chronicle Links are here:

HERE


HERE

Fairness To Israel Responds To Vassar Professor

the Miscellany News April 10, 2014

Had I any doubts that our students are ill-served when faculty act primarily as activists rather than scholars, Prof. Schreier’s letter (“Campus Discourse Continues to Be Strong,” The Miscellany News 4/3/14) has completely dispelled them. It is a textbook example of how easily facts are sacrificed when one’s concern is to promote a specific political agenda.

Let’s start with Prof. Schreier’s recasting of the original “open letter” signed by 39 Vassar professors “dissenting” from President Hill’s and Dean Chenette’s condemnation of the ASA boycott of Israeli academic institutions. He says it was simply a defense of academic boycotts as a form of non-violent activism –surely nothing that the alumni group Fairness to Israel (FTI) could fairly characterize as “ranting.” In actual fact, it was President Hill’s and Dean Chenette’s statement that was limited to that issue; they asserted (along with 250 other universities and colleges) that academic boycotts are detrimental to the free exchange of ideas. But while Pres. Hill and Dean Chenette did not address the ASA’s unfair and unjustified singling out of Israel for academic isolation, the 39 professors nevertheless took the opportunity to sling the same inflammatory accusations against Israel that BDS supporters use to urge elimination of the Jewish state. Without any specifics but much rhetoric, the 39 professors asserted that Israel inflicts “considerable violence and brutality” on the Palestinians and “other minoritized populations,” that it engages in “ongoing systematic dispossession of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes and livelihood,” that it has “apartheid legislation,” and that it has created a “humanitarian crisis” – among other horrible acts. When inflammatory statements of this sort are made gratuitously and without specifics, most people would agree that constitutes ranting.

Prof. Schreier also retreats from the 39 professors’ expressed concern that Vassar’s rejection of the ASA boycott could have a chilling effect “on our campus.” Now, after FTI has pointed out all the ways in which anti-Zionist views are echoed loudly, aggressively and hostilely on Vassar’s campus while pro-Israel voices have been silenced, Prof. Schreier assures us that campus discourse is open and that debate is “lively.” And the evidence for this? Israel Apartheid week! The SJP members physically harassing students attending class to prevent their planned trip to Israel! The fact that the SJP’s harassment efforts failed! How bathroom stalls littered with flyers full of anti-Israel rhetoric stimulates debate is a puzzle to me (and conjures surreal images that I prefer not to entertain). Ditto for disruptions of classroom learning and the other intimidating tactics employed by SJP.

In fact, my sense is that Prof. Schreier is getting a bit worried that SJP’s free rein to engage in disruptive tactics may be curtailed. So he takes this occasion to compliment Vassar’s administration for its tolerance, contrasting it to Northeastern University and Barnard College where, he suggests, they have chilled legitimate debate as part of a backlash against the ASA boycott. This is yet another example where Prof. Schreier does not allow facts to get in the way of spin. Neither NU nor Barnard acted in response to the ASA boycott. At NU, Jewish students had endured several years during which BDS supporters were allowed to run rampant, engaging in such activities as mocking Jewish students for being Jewish and touting anti-Semitism as a “badge of distinction.” The NU administration finally was moved to act after some groups began documenting these anti-Semitic incidents. In suspending the NU chapter of SJP, the administration noted that those students had vandalized campus property, refused to follow university rules when sliding mock eviction notices under the doors of fellow students, and disrupted events featuring speakers they opposed.
And, at Barnard, a banner showing a map that eliminated Israel was removed not in contravention of long-standing practice, but precisely the opposite. The banner had been posted in a particular space dedicated to promoting campus events; using it for controversial statements was outside of the norm, because the prominent location implied official endorsement.

Perhaps Professor Schreier’s most appalling reality lapse is his accusation that FTI has helped right-wing bloggers “emphasize” the racial elements of the issues at hand. FTI’s response to the 39 professors’ “open letter” made no reference to the race of the anti-Israel protesters. In fact, it was a left-wing , notoriously anti-Zionist blog, Mondoweiss, which first revealed a Vassar professor’s claim that SJP students were being targeted unfairly because of their color (even though no disciplinary actions were ever brought based on their disruptive behavior).

Indeed, Prof. Schreier has no compunction whatsoever in injecting race into the debate when it serves his purpose, as he did when suggesting that Judaism is a race in an interview on the ASA boycott published by The Miscellany News on January 22.

Prof. Schreier does mention that some students have finally begun to organize “pro-Israel” groups, which is the one hopeful sign in all of this sorry state of affairs. One such group, the Chabad Student Jewish group, hosted an event on April 3, in which two Israeli soldiers spoke about their lives, their work and their aspirations for peace. They encouraged all to attend, including those opposed to the Israeli state, in the hope that students would hear firsthand from those whom they have been taught and encouraged to vilify. Although this was a meaningful opportunity for students and faculty to engage in the type of open dialogue Prof. Schreier purports to espouse, neither he nor any of the other 38 signers of the open letter in support of academic freedom found the time to attend.  LINK HERE

-Laurie Josephs ’78 P’12. Member of Fairness to Israel

And another! CLICK HERE!

Vassar's Israel Debate Takes 'Raw' Racial Turn

from the Jewish Daily Forward 3.28.14

By J.J. Goldberg

NOTE: more debate on the rise of Israel bashing and the lack of civility on campus. 

An ugly confrontation took place at Vassar College March 3 between pro-BDS activists and a group of students and professors who were about to embark on a college-sponsored trip to study water issues in Israel and Palestine. A college forum convened to discuss the tensions surrounding the trip - and more specifically, the protests against it - brought out what one pro-Palestinian blogger, Philip Weiss, called a “raw” and “unsettling” display of rage tinged with racial resentment directed against the Jewish students.

The shouting and name-calling session, formally known as an “Open Forum on the Ethics of Student Activism and Protest at Vassar,” is getting some passionate scrutiny on the right. Commentary’s Jonathan Marks has weighed in, as has Caroline Glick in her Jerusalem Post column.

What’s particularly interesting is that they both rely for the facts on a gripping eye-witness account by Philip Weiss, whose MondoWeiss.net blog is a platform for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel Jews whose vehemence sometimes makes even Weiss himself uncomfortable.  CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/195416/vassars-israel-debate-takes-raw-racial-turn/#ixzz2xGSyoruA

Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar

Posted by William A. Jacobson    Thursday, March 27, 2014 at 10:25am LEGAL INSURRECTION

NOTE: Long day for Vassar College. Starting this morning with the excellent letter written by over 60 Alumni and Parents against the growing climate of Jew Hatred at Vassar. Since then we've seen articles in Legal Insurrection, Honest Reporting and more. Here's an update from Legal Insurrection. I expect as this day wears on we'll see more in the wider press as word gets out. Let's hope the excellent administration at Vassar pays attention and helps to set the dialogue on a constructive course. 

CLICK THIS TO READ ON!

or CLICK THIS to read from today's JPOST.com article by Caroline B. Glick titled: 

Column One: Campus brownshirts rising

Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar

Posted by William A. Jacobson    Thursday, March 27, 2014 at 10:25am

Heavy racial overtones as Israel class picketed, Professor forced to walk protest gauntlet, Jewish students heckled and mocked.

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, has been in the headlines this year because of anti-Israel agitation related to Hillel.  But that’s only part of the story, and the only part to receive mainstream media attention.

In fact, several events coincided leading to an ugly, racialized and anti-Israel eruption on campus in early March which has not received any mainstream media attention, although it was covered at the pro-Israel Commentary Magazine and Louis Brandeis Center, and previously at the anti-Israel Mondoweiss website.

I began looking into these events several days ago, and have had extensive conversations with the two Vassar professors who were the target of anti-Israel rage.  I also have obtained documentation not previously published.

What transpired was anti-Israel vitriol directed at Professors and students taking a course that involved travel to Israel and the West Bank, an intimidating protest outside a classroom, and a campus forum in which the Professors and Jewish students were belittled, heckled and mocked in such crude ways that it left even critics of Israel shaken.  Yet the Vassar administration has done little in response, and would not comment for this report. CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Faculty letter squelches campus voices - Debate at Vassar College Heats Up

in Miscellany News 3.26.14

NOTE: This letter posted in response to the recent Faculty Letter which opposed Vassar's President rejection of the ASA Boycott. 

The “Open Letter in Defense of Academic Freedom in Palestine/Israel and the United States” signed by 39 Vassar professors is a disturbing document, although not in the way intended. To many alumnae/i, it is a jarring signal that Vassar is no longer the open, innovative institution that transformed our lives, a college which stimulated—indeed compelled—independent and critical thinking. Rather, faculty and student supporters of the BDS movement against Israel have hijacked campus discourse and imposed an anti-intellectual atmosphere in which professors are ranting activists, not scholars, and students who disagree with the prevailing “progressive” ideology are intimidated into a deafening silence.

This letter is submitted on behalf of Fairness to Israel, a growing group of Vassar alumnae/i, parents of Vassar students, and others who are deeply concerned with this sorry state of affairs. We will vigorously support Vassar’s president in her efforts to restore sanity, tolerance and civil dialogue to campus.

In their letter (manifesto, actually), the 39 professors assert that Vassar’s condemnation of a resolution by the ASA to boycott Israeli academic institutions has a “chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and opinions.” As they see it, the “real threat to academic freedom” is the “frenzied” campaign launched against the ASA in response to its boycott resolution. This Orwellian view of who is being silenced would be laughable if the matter were less serious.  CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

“Shut Up,” BDS Explained: An “Open Forum” at Vassar

Jonathan Marks | @marksjo103.26.2014 - 9:15 AM
From COMMENTARY 

It will come as no surprise to COMMENTARY readers that the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement undermines the missions of colleges and universities because it wants to use higher education to advance a partisan political agenda. It may come as a surprise, however, that BDS supporters like Philip Weiss now happily concede the point.

Consider his account of an “Open Forum on the Ethics of Student Activism and Protest at Vassar,” held early this month under the auspices of Vassar’s “Committee on Inclusion and Excellence.” The meeting was prompted by an international studies course on water issues in the Jordan River valley, which included a trip to the Middle East. As Weiss acknowledges, the organizers of the trip worked with Palestinian NGOs, intended to put their students in touch with Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians, and included a Palestinian refugee camp on the itinerary. But the trip also entailed cooperation with theArava Institute for Environmental Studies, long a boycott target because of its belief that the future of the region depends on cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians, and other stakeholders. The BDS movement demands that supporters refuse “participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions.” Moreover, the trip was “chiefly inside Israel with visits to the occupation,” and the syllabus did not explicitly discuss Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians.

So members of Vassar’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine “staged an action against” the on-campus part of the class, which included picketing, urging students to drop the course, and making a lot of noise (the only dispute seems to be whether the noise could be described as “ululating” or not). Jill Schneiderman and Rachel Friedman, two of the course instructors, complained to college officials about the protest; the protesters, most of whom were “people of color,” cried racism; and so the open forum was held. CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Vassar And The BDS War On Campus

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Petra Marquardt Bigman the Brandeiss Center for Human Rights under Law

The anti-Zionist – and sometimes also anti-Semitic – website Mondoweiss recently published a lengthy report by the site’s founder Philip Weiss about a meeting that took place at Vassar in early March. According to Weiss, the meeting had been scheduled by the school’s Committee on Inclusion and Excellence in order to discuss guidelines for activism after persistent protests by Vassar’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) against a trip to Israel planned by Vassar’s International Studies program.

Weiss began his report by quoting Jill Schneiderman, the professor who had apparently initiated the trip and who had mentioned the meeting in a post on her blog, where she wrote that she “was knocked off-center by a belligerent academic community dedicated to vilifying anyone who dares set foot in Israel.”  Weiss confirmed that the meeting “was truly unsettling,” that “torrents of anger ripped through the gathering” and that “rage against Israel was the theme.” He contrasted this atmosphere favorably with the broad popular support for Israel in the US, asserting that it was very different at Vassar, where “the spirit of that young progressive space was that Israel is a blot on civilization, and boycott is right and necessary. If a student had gotten up and said, I love Israel, he or she would have been mocked and scorned into silence.”

But according to Weiss, Israel’s supporters should expect not just more of the same, but worse to come, because in his view, the “battles we’ve seen so far on campus are just preliminaries.” He predicted that “things are going to get much more belligerent” and asserted that “belligerence may be necessary to the resolution.”  CLICK THIS TO KEEP READING

Empowering Jewish Students to Address Bias on Campus

ADL Launches New Interactive Education Program

This week, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) launched a new interactive education program in Florida called“Words to Action: Empowering Jewish Students to Address Bias on Campus.”  As part of a nationwide initiative for the League, the ADL Florida Office provided its first training on February 23rd to over seventy 12th grade students from Broward County.  The two and a half hour training took place at the David Posnack Jewish Community Center in Davie, Florida, as part of pre-trip education sessions for students who are about to embark on the Broward County “March of the Living” – a two week trip for Jewish teenagers to Poland and Israel in memory of the Holocaust.

“Words to Action” is designed to empower and equip college and college-bound students with constructive and effective responses to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias on campus. The program is based on ADL’s Confronting Anti-Semitism program, which was created in the 1980’s in response to a comprehensive survey of Jewish youth in New England, conducted by the League. The findings revealed that middle and high school youth frequently experienced anti-Semitic comments, taunts, harassment and graffiti in their schools, neighborhoods and communities. Rather than standing up to this prejudice, many youth remained silent, both in the face of oppression and later, when they returned to their homes and families.

“Decades later, ADL has tracked the continued existence of this same type of anti-Semitism, along with another form of anti-Semitism – fueled by anti-Israel sentiment – that turns up on college campuses,” stated Hava Holzhauer, ADL Florida Regional Director.  “We believe that “Words to Action” will help Jewish young adults and college-bound teens address the current face of anti-Semitism by increasing their comprehension and awareness of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in their lives, by refuting anti-Semitic stereotypes and anti-Israel myths with accurate information, and by teaching skills for responding effectively to anti-Semitism.”

ADL’s inaugural training in Florida included an interactive activity engaging students to define and understand the terms: anti-Israel, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism; a PowerPoint presentation on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement and how anti-Israel campus groups adopt such tactics as a deliberate strategy; and an “Assess and Act” segment during which the students viewed three vignettes – “Anti-Israel Bias in the Classroom,” “Apartheid Wall,” and “Headlines.”  The students were provided with ADL materials to serve as a resource for them and their friends.

To request an ADL “Words to Action” training, please call: (561) 988-2900.

ADL in the News

Sun-Sentinel: Students being trained to fight anti-Semitism

GO TO SOURCE HERE

Howard’s opinion disregards academia

By KAREN RAPPAPORT & LAURIE JOSEPHS on February 26, 2014 in OPINIONS - No comments

Responding to articles and letters from us and other alumnae/i, Katherine Howard ’12 purports to offer her own “case for academic freedom” (The Miscellany News, “Vassar BDS sentiments not shared by all,” 2.19.14). Thank you, Howard, for providing an excellent example of what the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement is actually about. As your letter makes clear, you are not concerned with Israel’s supposed wrongdoing—much less about trying to persuade Israel to correct alleged misdeeds—but with Israel’s “wrong-being”. For you and other BDS proponents, Israel has no right to exist.

It should be an uphill battle to convince the world that the only stable liberal democracy in the Middle East should dissolve itself. After all, it was almost 67 years ago that the UN recommended (through UN Resolution 181) partition of the land in order to create a Jewish state, and, thereafter admitted that state into the United Nations. But Howard shows us how surprisingly easy it can be, if one assumes the audience is intellectually lazy or already indoctrinated.  READ THE ARTICLE HERE

NOTE: This is a great rebuttal published yesterday in the VASSAR COLLEGE Student newspaper, the Miscellany News. You may want to Read the Original Howard Piece Here first and see what prompted this elegant reply. Vassar College has recently been the scene of action by anti-Hillel, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and pro-BDS students. As we've previously pointed out this has not gone unnoticed, including an editorial peice in the Wall Street Journal, the Times of Israel and today a letter from the President of Vassar to alumni calling on all for "respectful" dialogue. 

Anti-Israel Jews and the Vassar Blues

Thanks to MOSAIC MAGAZINE for picking up this vital piece, originally aired last week in the WSJ and now available to those who want to read it. 

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has added to my ambivalence about my alma mater by Lucette Lagnado February 24, 2014 Source: Wall Street Journal Originally published on 02/23/2014

Recently I was contacted by a fellow Vassar alumna through Facebook. She wanted to know if I was aware that our genteel alma mater had become a hotbed of anti-Israel, pro-boycott sentiment. Suddenly, my stomach was in knots—a feeling that Vassar has managed to evoke in me ever since I went there in the 1970s. An Orthodox Jewish girl from Brooklyn on a full scholarship, I fixated on this Seven Sister school as my entryway to the American dream, the epitome of style and grace that also prided itself on teaching “critical thinking.” In this case the cause of my angst was a young woman named Naomi Dann, the president of the Vassar Jewish Union. She had penned a piece for the campus paper strongly supporting the recent move by the American Studies Association to boycott Israeli academic exchanges—a decision denounced by college presidents across the country, including Vassar’s. Her piece strung together all the familiar buzzwords and clichés used by Israel’s critics: “atrocities,” “oppressive,” “abuses,” “colonial,” and, of course, “apartheid.” Signed jointly with the co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine, Ms. Dann even slammed Vassar’s president and dean of the faculty for daring to oppose the boycott against the Jewish state. There was more to fuel my Vassar angoisse. The head of the Jewish Studies Program, a professor named Joshua Schreier, had also expressed support for the boycott movement. Prof. Schreier was quoted in the campus paper ruminating that while once “instinctively against” the boycott, he had heard more “substantiated, detailed” arguments on its behalf, and as a result “I am currently leaning in favor of it,” he concluded delicately, as if choosing a flavored tea.

http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2014/02/1695/

Read more at: http://spme.org/boycotts-divestments-sanctions-bds/anti-israel-jews-vassar-blues/16949/ | SPME

Anti-Israel Jews and the Vassar Blues

This is a MUST READ. The disturbing action at VASSAR COLLEGE, including the response to the ASA Boycott Threat, the BDS movement and now Hillel opting out and joining Open Hillel is primarily responsible for this blog. Please take the time to read this article. Comments are welcome! 

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has added to my ambivalence about my alma mater.

By LUCETTE LAGNADO

Feb. 23, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET

From the WSJ Online Please read this article here: HERE

(This article is behind a paywall. You may be able to read it by searching the title (above) in Google.)

Ms. Lagnado, a Journal reporter, is the author of two memoirs of her Egyptian-Jewish family, "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit" (Harper Perennial, 2008) and "The Arrogant Years" (Ecco, 2012).

Vassar Jewish Students Break With Hillel on Israel

Published February 20, 2014 on line for February 28 Edition
The FORWARD at forward.com

The Vassar Jewish Union has declared itself an “Open Hillel,” becoming the second organization to break from Hillel International over the parent group’s pro-Israel guidelines.

“We believe that Hillel International’s goal to ‘inspire every Jewish college student to develop a meaningful and enduring relationship to Israel’ does not represent the diverse opinions of young American Jews,” the VJU said in a February 18 statement announcing that it would no longer abide by the Hillel guidelines. “We believe that fostering a pluralistic community and supporting all Jewish life on campus cannot be achieved with Hillel International’s Israel guidelines in place.”

The “Open Hillel” movement joined by the VJU describes itself as “a student-run campaign to encourage inclusivity and open discourse at campus Hillels.” The movement encourages Hillel chapters to reject Hillel International’s Israel guidelines, which prohibit campus Hillels from sponsoring programs, partnering with clubs and hosting speakers who “delegitimize, demonize or apply a double standard to Israel,” or deny its right to exist. The guidelines also bar cooperation with anyone supporting boycotts, divestments or sanctions against the Jewish state.

Last December Swarthmore Hillel became the first school to publicly reject the guidelines.

Continues Here
NOTE: This and the next article deal with the same topic. What is it that actually creates a "tipping point" in history? Only time will tell, but I'll bet my max bet, a nickel, that for some reason, the "Open Hillel" movement may be the pivot. Students have been hearing about BDS and "Apartheid week" for some time and most probably rolled their eyes, assuming yet another "cute" liberal bandwagon would pass by. After all, there was always Hillel to go back to in case you needed a shabbot candle, a bagel or someplace calm to go and decompress. 

But now "Open Hillel" will allow those calm spaces to be crashed by Anti semitic speakers, BDS organizers, Nazi Sympathizers  and others who seek the end of the State of Israel. And this will not go down well with those Jewish kids who need a little shelter from the storm. 

Vassar Jewish Union declares itself an ‘Open Hillel’

Published 02/19/2014 in JTA  online at:  JTA.org

Vassar College’s Jewish Union declared itself an “Open Hillel,” repudiating international Hillel guidelines rejecting partnerships with groups deemed hostile toward Israel. The Vassar Jewish Union, a Hillel-affiliated student group, made the announcement Tuesday on its website. It is the second campus Hillel organization to designate itself an Open Hillel. Swarthmore College Hillel voted to reject the Hillel guidelines for campus Israel activities in December. The guidelines forbid individual Hillel chapters from hosting groups or speakers that among other things deny Israel’s right to exist or support boycott or divestment from the Jewish state.
Keep reading here