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Embracing their place on ‘the fringes,’ queer artists reimagine Jewish ritual garments for all bodies
(JTA) — Binya Kóatz remembers the first time she saw a woman wearing tzitzit. While attending Friday night services at a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Berkeley, she noticed the long ritual fringes worn by some observant Jews — historically men — dangling below a friend’s short shorts.
“That was the first time I really realized how feminine just having tassels dangling off you can look and be,” recalled Kóatz, an artist and activist based in the Bay Area. “That is both deeply reverent and irreverent all at once, and there’s a deep holiness of what’s happening here.”
Since that moment about seven years ago, Kóatz has been inspired to wear tzitzit every day. But she has been less inspired by the offerings available in online and brick-and-mortar Judaica shops, where the fringes are typically attached to shapeless white tunics meant to be worn under men’s clothing.
So in 2022, when she was asked to test new prototypes for the Tzitzit Project, an art initiative to create tzitzit and their associated garment for a variety of bodies, genders and religious denominations, Kóatz jumped at the chance. The project’s first products went on sale last month.
“This is a beautiful example of queers making stuff for ourselves,” Kóatz said. “I think it’s amazing that queers are making halachically sound garments that are also ones that we want to wear and that align with our culture and style and vibrancy.”
Jewish law, or halacha, requires that people who wear four-cornered garments — say, a tunic worn by an ancient shepherd — must attach fringes to each corner. The commandment is biblical: “Speak to the Israelite people and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the ages” (Numbers 15:37-41) When garments that lack corners came into fashion, many Jews responded by using tzitzit only when wearing a tallit, or prayer shawl, which has four corners.
But more observant Jews adopted the practice of wearing an additional four-cornered garment for the sole purpose of fulfilling the commandment to tie fringes to one’s clothes. Called a tallit katan, or small prayer shawl, the garment is designed to be worn under one’s clothes and can be purchased at Judaica stores or online for less than $15. The fringes represent the 613 commandments of the Torah, and it is customary to hold them and kiss them at certain points while reciting the Shema prayer.
“They just remind me of my obligations, my mitzvot, and my inherent holiness,” Kóatz said. “That’s the point, you see your tzitzit and you remember everything that it means — all the obligations and beauty of being a Jew in this world.”
The California-based artists behind the Tzitzit Project had a hunch that the ritual garment could appeal to a more diverse set of observant Jews than the Orthodox men to whom the mass-produced options are marketed. Julie Weitz and Jill Spector had previously collaborated on the costumes for Weitz’s 2019 “My Golem” performance art project that uses the mythical Jewish creature to explore contemporary issues. In one installment of the project focused on nature, “Prayer for Burnt Forests,” Weitz’s character ties a tallit katan around a fallen tree and wraps the tzitzit around its branches.
“I was so moved by how that garment transformed my performance,” Weitz said, adding that she wanted to find more ways to incorporate the garment into her life.
The Tzitzit Project joins other initiatives meant to explore and expand the use of tzitzit. A 2020 podcast called Fringes featured interviews with a dozen trans and gender non-conforming Jews about their experiences with Jewish ritual garments. (Kóatz was a guest.) Meanwhile, an online store, Netzitzot, has since 2014 sold tzitzit designed for women’s bodies, made from modified H&M undershirts.
The Tzitzit Project goes further and sells complete garments that take into account the feedback of testers including Kóatz — in three colors and two lengths, full and cropped, as well as other customization options related to a wearer’s style and religious practices. (The garments cost $100, but a sliding scale for people with financial constraints can bring the price as far down as $36.)
Spector and Weitz found that the trial users were especially excited by the idea that the tzitzit could be available in bright colors, and loved how soft the fabric felt on their bodies, compared to how itchy and ill-fitting they found traditional ones to be. They also liked that each garment could be worn under other clothing or as a more daring top on its own.
To Weitz, those attributes are essential to her goal of “queering” tzitzit.
“Queering something also has to do with an embrace of how you wear things and how you move your body in space and being proud of that and not carrying any shame around that,” she said. “And I think that that stylization is really distinct. All those gender-conventional tzitzit for men — they’re not about style, they’re not about reimagining how you can move your body.”
Artist Julie Weitz ties the knots of the tzitzit, fringes attached to the corners of a prayer shawl or the everyday garment known as a “tallit katan.” (Courtesy of Tzitzit Project)
For Chelsea Mandell, a rabbinical student at the Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles who is nonbinary, the Tzitzit Project is creating Jewish ritual objects of great power.
“It deepens the meaning and it just feels more radically spiritual to me, when it’s handmade by somebody I’ve met, aimed for somebody like me,” said Mandell, who was a product tester.
Whether the garments meet the requirements of Jewish law is a separate issue. Traditional interpretations of the law hold that the string must have been made specifically for tzitzit, for example — but it’s not clear on the project’s website whether the string it uses was sourced that way. (The project’s Instagram page indicates that the wool is spun by a Jewish fiber artist who is also the brother of the alt-rocker Beck.)
“It is not obvious from their website which options are halachically valid and which options are not,” said Avigayil Halpern, a rabbinical student who began wearing tzitzit and tefillin at her Modern Orthodox high school in 2013 when she was 16 and now is seen as a leader in the movement to widen their use.
“And I think it’s important that queer people in particular have as much access to knowledge about Torah and mitzvot as they’re embracing mitzvot.”
Weitz explained that there are multiple options for the strings — Tencel, cotton or hand-spun wool — depending on what customers prefer, for their comfort and for their observance preferences.
“It comes down to interpretation,” she said. “For some, tzitzit tied with string not made for the purpose of tying, but with the prayer said, is kosher enough. For others, the wool spun for the purpose of tying is important.”
Despite her concerns about its handling of Jewish law, Halpern said she saw the appeal of the Tzitzit Project, with which she has not been involved.
“For me and for a lot of other queer people, wearing something that is typically associated with Jewish masculinity — it has a gender element,” explained Halpern, a fourth-year student at Hadar, the egalitarian yeshiva in New York.
“If you take it out of the Jewish framework, there is something very femme and glamorous and kind of fun in the ways that dressing up and wearing things that are twirly is just really joyful for a lot of people,” she said.
Rachel Schwartz first became drawn to tzitzit while studying at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem in 2018. There, young men who were engaging more intensively with Jewish law and tradition than they had in the past began to adopt the garments, and Schwartz found herself wondering why she had embraced egalitarian religious practices in all ways but this one.
“One night, I took one of my tank tops and I cut it up halfway to make the square that it needed. I found some cool bandanas at a store and I sewed on corners,” Schwartz recalled. “And I bought the tzitzit at one of those shops on Ben Yehuda and I just did it and it was awesome.”
Rachel Schwartz stands in front of a piece of graffiti that plays on the commandment to wear tzitzit, written in the Hebrew feminine. (Courtesy of Rachel Schwartz)
Schwartz’s experience encapsulates both the promise and the potential peril of donning tzitzit for people from groups that historically have not worn the fringes. Other women at the Conservative Yeshiva were so interested in her tzitzit that she ran a workshop where she taught them how to make the undergarment. But she drew so many critical comments from men on the streets of Jerusalem that she ultimately gave up wearing tzitzit publicly.
“I couldn’t just keep on walking around like that anymore. I was tired of the comments,” Schwartz said. “I couldn’t handle it anymore.”
Rachel Davidson, a Reconstructionist rabbi working as a chaplain in health care in Ohio, started consistently wearing a tallit katan in her mid-20s. Like Kóatz, she ordered her first one from Netzitzot.
“I would love to see a world where tallitot katanot that are shaped for non cis-male bodies are freely available and are affordable,” Davidson said. “I just think it’s such a beautiful mitzvah. I would love it if more people engaged with it.”
Kóatz believes that’s not only possible but natural. As a trans woman, she said she is drawn to tzitzit in part because of the way they bring Jewish tradition into contact with contemporary ideas about gender.
“Queers are always called ‘fringe,’” she said. “And here you have a garment which is literally like ‘kiss the fringes.’ The fringes are holy.”
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Tidbits: The first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the U.S
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. You’ll also find the link to the article in English after each news brief.
צום ערשטן מאָל אין דער אַמעריקאַנער געשיכטע האָט אַ פֿרומע ייִדישע פֿרוי דערגרייכט דעם אַמט פֿון בירגער־מײַסטער.
מישעל ווײַס, אַ רעפּובליקאַנערין וואָס האָט במשך פֿון די פֿאַרגאַנגענע 15 יאָר געדינט ווי אַ מיטגליד פֿונעם שטאָטראַט פֿון יוניווערסיטי הײַטס, אָהײַאָ — אַ פֿאָרשטאָט פֿון קליוולאַנד — האָט געוווּנען די וואַלן, נישט געקוקט אויף דעם וואָס די שטאָט איז טיף דעמאָקראַטיש־געשטימט.
דערצו האָט זי געוווּנען דעם פֿאַרמעסט מיט אַ ממשותדיקער מערהייט — מער ווי 56%. איר קאָנקורענט, דזשיי טשאָנסי האָטאָן, פֿון דער דעמאָקראַטישער פּאַרטיי, האָט באַקומען 37%. אַ דריטער קאַנדידאַט, פֿיליפּ אַטקין, וואָס געהערט נישט צו קיין פּאַרטיי, האָט באַקומען 6%.
אין יוניווערסיטי הײַטס וווינען בערך 13,000 מענטשן.
ווײַס, אַ מאַמע און אַ באָבע וואָס וווינט אין דער שטאָט שוין 29 יאָר, האָט אָנגעהויבן איר פּאָליטישע טעטיקייט ווי אַ וואָלונטיר און האָט זיך אַרויפֿגעאַרבעט צו וויצע־בירגערמײַסטערין. במשך פֿון די יאָרן איז איר שם געוואַקסן אַ דאַנק איר פֿינאַנץ־דיסציפּלין, איר שטיצע פֿאַר אָפּהיטן די סבֿיבֿה און איר פֿאָקוס אויף פֿאַרבעסערן די אינפֿראַסטרוקטור.
ווײַס האָט געזאָגט אַז איר ערשטע פּריאָריטעט וועט זײַן צו היילן די פּאָליטישע שפּאַלטונג אין דער שטאָט־רעגירונג. זי האָט קריטיקירט די פֿריִערדיקע אַדמיניסטראַציע פֿאַרן שאַפֿן אַ שפּאַנונג צווישן דעמאָקראַטן און רעפּובליקאַנער און האָט געזאָגט, אַז זי האָפֿט אויפֿצוריכטן אַ געפֿיל פֿון צוזאַמענאַרבעט, בעת זי נעמט זיך אונטער עטלעכע גרויסע אינפֿראַסטרוקטור־פּראָיעקטן.
אין אַ צײַט פֿון שטײַגנדיקן אַנטיסעמיטיזם אין די פֿאַראייניקטע שטאַטן, האָט ווײַס באַטאָנט אַז מע מוז פֿאַרבעסערן די קאָאָפּעראַציע צווישן דער פּאָליציי און דער זיכערהייט־דינסט בײַ קליוולאַנדס ייִדישער פֿעדעראַציע. זי האָט אויך געזאָגט אַז ס׳איז וויכטיק צו באַשיצן די פֿאַרשידנאַרטיקייט פֿון דער שטאָט־באַפֿעלקערונג. אין איין ראַיאָן פֿון צוויי קוואַדראַט־מײַל געפֿינען זיך נישט ווייניקער ווי 17 עטנישע גרופּעס.
ווײַס האָפֿט אַז איר דערוויילט ווערן וועט אינספּירירן אַנדערע פֿרומע ייִדישע פֿרויען צו קאַנדידירן אויף אַ פּאָליטישן אַמט. „איר קענט ווײַטער לעבן לויט אײַערע ווערטן בשעת איר דינט די רעגירונג,“ האָט זי געזאָגט.
כּדי צו לייענען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
In order to read this article in English, click here.
The post Tidbits: The first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the U.S appeared first on The Forward.
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In Galveston, descendants of a forgotten Jewish migration keep their community’s story alive
(JTA) — GALVESTON, Texas – More than a century ago, this busy Gulf Coast port and longtime vacation destination 50 miles southeast of Houston welcomed so many European immigrants – including some 10,000 Jews – it earned the moniker “The Ellis Island of the West.”
Today, the few remaining descendants of Jewish immigrants from that time period still living on the island are determined to preserve and nourish the story of the Galveston Movement, a mostly forgotten but pivotal chapter in Jewish-American history.
Galveston, an island-city of 53,000 residents, is the fourth-busiest cruise port in the country and the birthplace of the Juneteenth holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. With 32 miles of brown-sand beaches, a charming historic district with numerous well-preserved Victorian-era homes, and some 80 festivals held year-round, the island annually attracts 8 million tourists.
It also offers visitors several sites related to the Galveston Movement and what was once a robust Jewish community that produced five mayors, prominent business leaders and two highly renowned rabbis.
The Galveston Movement, also called the Galveston Plan, was a humanitarian effort operated by several Jewish organizations that brought Jewish immigrants from Czarist Russia and Eastern Europe through the port of Galveston between 1907 and 1914. Most arrived in Galveston on steamships from Bremen, Germany, a transatlantic trip that took two to three weeks.
A recent book by English historian and journalist Rachel Cockerell — “Melting Point” — has helped reignite interest in the Galveston Movement. Cockerell, whose great-grandfather David Jochelmann played a key role in organizing the program in Europe, spoke this month at Galveston’s Temple B’nai Israel as part of a U.S. tour promoting the book.
“As soon as started reading about the Galveston Movement, I sort of went down a rabbit hole from which I didn’t emerge for three years,” Cockerell told a group of more than 100 Galvestonians, Jews and non-Jews alike. “I was totally transfixed by this amazing story of Jewish immigration in the early 20th century.”
“I love it,” says Shelley Nussenblatt Kessler, 74, of the heightened attention on the Galveston Movement. Kessler estimates she is one of 25 to 30 “BOIs” — shorthand for “Born on the Island”) — still living in Galveston who are descendants of the Jewish immigrants who came to America as part of the program. Her grandmother and grandfather immigrated from what is now western Ukraine to Galveston in 1910 and 1911.
“Not only am I very proud to be a descendant of two of these immigrants, but I can’t help but think of how lucky I am to be here,” she said. “I’m in awe of what my grandparents did and how they got here, and the sacrifices that they made.”
By the late 1880s, thousands of Jews began fleeing their homes in the Russian Empire to escape antisemitic policies and violent pogroms. Many immigrated to New York and other East Coast cities, resulting in overcrowding and poverty.
Jacob Schiff, a New York banker and philanthropist, financed the Galveston Movement as a way to blunt an anticipated wave of antisemitism on the Eastern seaboard, which might lead to immigration restrictions. Schiff sought to find suitable alternative destinations in the American South for the influx of Jewish immigrants.
Charleston, South Carolina, which had a long-established Jewish community, was considered but city leaders there only wanted Anglo-Saxon immigrants. New Orleans was also in the mix but there were concerns about periodic outbreaks of yellow fever.
Enter Galveston, a port that checked all of the boxes. It had a deep-water harbor that could accommodate large ships and an extensive railroad system available to transport immigrants to other cities and towns.
“Really the purpose of Galveston was to channel the immigrants into other parts of Texas and up the middle of the country west of the Mississippi,” said Dwayne Jones, a historian who is CEO of the Galveston Historical Foundation.
Jones says there was another key reason Galveston was selected: There already was a well established Jewish community that was thriving in the city’s business and political circles. In fact, Galveston had elected its first Jewish mayor — Dutch-born Michael Seeligson — as far back as 1853.
“It was a more tolerant community with a depth of diversity you didn’t see in other places,” Jones said. “It also had a long history of Jewish leadership and activities in Galveston.
The first Reform congregation in Texas, Galveston’s Congregation B’nai Israel, was established in 1868. Twenty years later, London-born Henry Cohen, who was only 25 at the time, became the congregation’s rabbi. Cohen led B’nai Israel for a remarkable 64 years until his death in 1952. It’s believed to be the longest tenure of a rabbi at the same congregation in U.S. history.
In 1900 Galveston was decimated by a storm known as the Great Galveston Hurricane. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in American history, with an estimated 8,000 fatalities, about 20% of its population at the time. Two-thirds of the island’s buildings and homes were destroyed. Cohen and other Jewish leaders played a major role in the relief and reconstruction efforts that followed.
“Jewish leadership took a really powerful role in rebuilding the island,” says Jones. “Without that leadership, I don’t think Galveston would have come back as it did.”
Seven years after the hurricane, the first ship that was part of the Galveston Movement – the S.S. Cassel — arrived from Bremen with 86 Jewish passengers. Cohen – who was proficient in 10 languages — was the humanitarian face of the movement, meeting ships at the Galveston docks and helping guide the immigrants through the cumbersome arrival and distribution process.
The arrivals were processed at the Jewish Immigrants’ Information Bureau headquarters in Galveston, which gave the immigrants rations and railroad tickets to more than 150 towns in Texas and other places west of the Mississippi River.
Unlike a vast majority of the immigrants who had only a brief stopover in Galveston before settling in other communities, Kessler’s grandparents decided to remain on the island. Her grandfather was a painting contractor while her grandmother worked as a housekeeper.
Adjusting to life in Texas proved to be a struggle for many immigrants. Kessler’s grandparents decided they would be happier back in Europe, even buying passage on a ship so they could return to their homeland. But World War I broke out, canceling their trip.
“The harbormaster told my grandparents to hold their tickets until after the war, and if you want to go back, we’ll redeem them,” Kessler said. “Thank God, they didn’t go back.”
By 1914, declining economic conditions and a surge in nativism and xenophobia — a forerunner of today’s anti-immigration climate — brought an end to the Galveston Movement. Still, the program resulted in an estimated 10,000 persecuted Jews finding new homes in the American hinterland in places few had imagined.
The Galveston Historic Seaport Museum chronicles the immigrant experience in an interactive exhibit called “Ship to Shore.” The exhibit includes a prominent photo of Henry Cohen. Computer terminals enable visitors to search for information taken from ships’ passenger manifests pertaining to their ancestors’ arrival in Texas. The Galveston County Museum, located inside the county courthouse, also features artifacts related to the Galveston Movement.
Kessler’s late husband Jimmy, who died in 2022, was another key figure in Galveston’s Jewish history. Jimmy Kessler served as B’nai Israel’s rabbi for 32 years until his retirement in 2014. He also was the founder and first president of the Texas Jewish Historical Society, which is now 45 years old and has more than 1,000 members.
Jimmy Kessler was devoted to telling the story of the Galveston Movement, writing three books about the area’s Jewish history, including a biography of Henry Cohen called “The Life of a Frontier Rabbi.” The street on which B’nai Israel is located was renamed Jimmy Kessler Drive in 2018, honoring his service to the congregation and the greater Galveston community.
“I’m married to a street,” joked Shelley Kessler, adding, “Jimmy, with what he did to preserve Texas Jewish history, kept all of this [the Galveston Movement] in the forefront.”
B’nai Israel, which now has a membership of 125 families, relocated to a new building in 1955, named the Henry Cohen Memorial Temple.
The congregation’s original synagogue – built in 1870 – was the spiritual launching point for the Jewish immigrants who were part of the Galveston Movement. It still stands on Kempner Street (named after a prominent Jewish family that included Mayor Isaac Kempner) in downtown Galveston. The building is now a private residence. Galveston also has a small Conservative synagogue, Congregation Beth Jacob, that was founded in 1931.
Robert Goldhirsh, 75, former president of Congregation B’nai Israel and another descendant of immigrants from the Galveston Movement, has been the caretaker of the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery for the past three decades. Several hundred Jews — some of whom came to America in the Galveston Movement — are buried in the cemetery. Henry Cohen also is interred there.
Both Goldhirsh and Kessler say that despite perceptions of deep-rooted intolerance in Texas, they’ve encountered little to no antisemitism in Galveston.
“Most of the people I know, it makes no difference that I’m Jewish,” Goldhirsh said. “We’re just Galvestonians.”
Indeed, Goldhirsh says the biggest threat to Jewish life on the island comes from Mother Nature. With climate change a contributing factor, recent years have seen a significant rise in weather-related disasters in Texas. For instance, Hurricane Ike in 2008 led to widespread flooding on Galveston Island and caused water damage in both synagogues.
“During one of the High Holiday services, there was a hurricane headed this way and we had to cancel for fear that the congregants would be caught in a bad storm,” he recalled. “You have to listen to the weather reports. If they say ‘leave,’ you better leave.”
The post In Galveston, descendants of a forgotten Jewish migration keep their community’s story alive appeared first on The Forward.
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Shunned by the right, targeted by the left, Eva Illouz confronts antisemitism masquerading as academic freedom
Last month, the Dutch city of Rotterdam became the latest stage for antisemites parading as anti-Zionists. It occurred at the city’s Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, named after Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist best known, rather ironically, for the satirical work, In Praise of Folly. In this instance, however, the academic fools strutting as anti-Zionists made the mistake of targeting the wrong person, Eva Illouz.
A member of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, Illouz is a renowned sociologist who has published several influential books on the role played by emotions in politics and economics. No less important, Illouz is a prominent public intellectual in France, where she is a frequent contributor to Le Monde, and Israel, where her byline is often found in the pages of Haaretz.
Illouz also holds the dubious distinction of winning but not receiving the prestigious Israel Prize. Earlier this year, the prize committee chose her for the award — previously given to figures like Amoz Oz, Martin Buber, and Gershom Scholem — but their decision was nullified by Yoav Kisch, the minister of education. Outraged that Illouz signed a petition sent to the International Crime Tribunal in 2021 to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes in the West Bank, Kisch denounced her “anti-Israel ideology.”
This was not the last folly that would befall Illouz this year. Invited to give a talk, “Romantic Love and Capitalism,” at the Love Lab, a research department at the Erasmus School, Illouz was then abruptly disinvited. Last month, she learned from the lab’s director that “not all the members of the faculty were “comfortable with the initial invitation.” The reason, predictably, was Illouz’s former affiliation with Hebrew University, even though she no longer taught there. While the decision was not unanimous, the director added, it was nevertheless arrived at “democratically.”
In the spirit of Erasmus, Illouz replied that she was “delighted to learn that a truly antisemitic decision was arrived at democratically” for which the “faculty members must feel all the more virtuous.” But Illouz also asked a lawyer to challenge the decision which, earlier this week, led the school’s rector to issue both an official apology and a new invitation to speak at the school.
While Illouz will not pursue her case, the significance of this affair remains pertinent. I asked Illouz to sit for a Zoom interview on her thoughts about this affair and the lessons we might take from it. The following conversation, slightly edited for reasons of space and style, begins with Illouz’s response to my question about the disinvitation.
Eva Illouz: If you are disinvited it could mean one or two things. First, it can be your opinion, but then, you know, there is nothing in my opinions that really changed since the time I was invited. And usually, if it is an opinion, people care to let you know. They want to let you know it’s because you spoke badly of trans people or because you express an offensive view about the biology of men and women or the hierarchy between the sexes, whatever. If it’s not an opinion, and of course it was not, then it means that it’s something about you.
This is where I think it gets interesting. The journalist from Le Monde managed to get a hold of one of the persons at the Love Lab, and the person told her that I still had a connection to Israel, And the proof of it was my email address. This is getting, I mean, really bizarre. But in fact, it’s not so bizarre because I think modern antisemitism is this capacity to turn Jews into an essence. An essence is something you cannot change. In the Christian world Jews could convert. They were evil, but not an essence. Modern anti-Semitism makes Jews into an evil essence. And this has been simply transposed to Israelis and Israeliness via decolonial discourse. An essence is something you can never leave behind. It defines your being. Like an email address.
Robert Zaretsky: But the notion of being Israeli, as an essence, that’s simply a surrogate, is it not, for anti -Jewish sentiment, a form of anti-Judaism?
Yes, absolutely. Israelis are Jews but because hating Jews is out of fashion, Zionism and Israel become code words, conceptual substitutes for Jews. And the effects, interestingly enough, are exactly the same as they were in the Middle Ages or later times, namely to ostracize and isolate. To create a real or symbolic ghetto. IA ghetto is a place to which Jews are assigned because they are not allowed to interact with others. BDS ostracism and exclusion are strangely and eerily reminiscent of the ghetto.
So then, in a way, what you’re suggesting is the BDS movement or what took place with the Love Lab at Rotterdam was the making of a virtual ghetto.
Absolutely, yeah. By the way, I think it’s interesting to note that in the homepage, I believe, of the BDS, they mention only institutions and not individuals.
Exactly, but they made an exception in your case.
In my case and in many other cases. I am not sure BDS speaks in good faith, because it is very unclear who does or doesn’t represent institutions and when an individual starts and a representative ends. Unsurprisingly Israeli institutions have become Israeli individuals, Israeli individuals have become Zionists at large, and Zionists are, surprise, Jews. All of these categories are intricately connected to each other. But they can hide safely behind these thick layers of obfuscations which turn anti-Zionism into an opinion.
How odd that earlier this year you were awarded the Israel Price, which was then clawed back by Netanyahu’s government because, in their eyes, you advocate an “anti-Israel ideology.”
Exactly. And it shows that the left, the extreme left and the extreme right use the same tactics.
Extremes meet.
They meet, they use the same tactics, and they are basically the same kind of people. They are bullies. They simply are bullies. As Trump says. If you’re not 100 % with me, I’ll go after you. Each side is a Trumpist at heart. If you’re not 100 % with them, they go and they come after you.
Which makes him the most dubious of allies for American Jews who think that Donald Trump, in fact, will protect Israel which, in fact, this not Donald Trump’s motivation. It’s purely transactional. And for an older generation of American Jews, unlike my children’s generation, they see Trump as a shield. And I think they are profoundly mistaken.
I mean, look at what is happening now. All the neo-Nazis ghosts are coming out. i They are like a Frankenstein creature which you can no longer control. Trump in power has unleashed the darkest forces in America. The darkness of these forces has perhaps no precedent in the history of your country and the Jews will be in the middle.
It’s created a permission structure for people who have always felt this way to finally speak out aloud about what they feel towards Jews, what they feel towards blacks, what they feel towards women.
In my opinion, Nick Fuentes is the real scary stuff. Judith Butler and Masha Gessen and Pankaj Mishra are adversaries (people I disagree with) but not enemies.
At first glance, the Rotterdam affair seems to have a happy ending. The university issued a public apology for what took place and made it very clear that what they did should not have been done. And so, one is tempted to say all’s well that ends well, but is that true?
It’s a small battle, but I’ve won it and its important for many reasons. One is that I went and took a lawyer who decided to go to the European court of justice and say, this is a blatant case of discrimination, which on the basis of nationality is prohibited as much as race or gender. Each one of us needs to refuse and fight against any act of discrimination not only because we are Jews but because we believe in the constitutional values of our countries.
Do you believe really that it was just legal pressure or that the administration realized that it had committed a mistake?
I will never know. I mean, you and I can speculate about it, but we will not know empirically what made them change and do this. They disavowed their faculty member and they took a position that is today, you know, not easy to take, certainly in Holland, where the freedom of expression is extremely wide. I have to credit the rector; it must not have been a very easy decision to make.
What does this suggest about the role of university administrators?
I think university presidents need to be empowered. They need to be given more power to be able to make these kinds of judgments. Academic freedom has been the cover to excuse many egregious actions. I think it needs to be much clearer that academic freedom is actually much more limited than freedom of expression. Academic freedom is a misnomer. It is only the freedom to decide the content of your research and of what you teach. The classroom context actually prohibits you from saying a great deal many things and it’s a very good thing too.
Don’t you worry this would be considered a form of censorship?
As a French woman, I take it for granted that we have to do balancing act between freedom and the collective good. This is why we French people prosecute hate speech. We have rules and limits to protect the integrity and dignity of people. Strangely enough this applies to every single minority except for the Jews. It doesn’t work for them. If I had been a black woman, I want to hope there would have been an immediate scandal inside the university. And I believe there would have been. At least, I want to hope so. But somehow being excluded as a Jew diminishes the seriousness of the offense.
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