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Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism
(JTA) – For days, students and police at Cleveland State University had been trying to figure out who stole a banner belonging to a campus Palestinian rights group.
The banner, which belonged to the student group Palestinian Human Rights Organization, read “CSU Solidarity for Palestinian Rights” and was illustrated with an outline of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip collectively emblazoned in the Palestinian flag. A dove holding an olive branch appeared on top of the image.
Then, on Jan. 19, police charged their top suspect: a local Orthodox rabbi, whose presence on campus had become all too familiar. A few days later the man confessed to the theft on Instagram, announcing that he had stolen the banner from the school’s student center “as an act of civil disobedience.”
“This incitement to annihilation of Israel should have never been permitted at CSU,” Rabbi Alexander Popivker, a 46-year-old Cleveland Heights resident whose neighborhood is six miles from the school, wrote on social media accompanied by a picture of the flag he stole.
It was far from Popivker’s only recent run-in with local university students.
A former Chabad-Lubavitch emissary in Naples, Italy, who now works in the Cleveland area as a handyman and part-time rabbi for a Russian-speaking Jewish community, Popivker has become known around town as a vigilant and omnipresent pro-Israel advocate. He can often be spotted counter-protesting at local pro-Palestinian demonstrations, or putting on displays of his own, with his wife Sarah on hand filming every contentious encounter.
One major theme of his protests, and his worldview, as he explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Palestinians and Nazis are the same thing.”
For the last year, Popivker had been making weekly trips to Cleveland State, occasionally accompanied by other students or community members, to give public demonstrations that elaborate on that idea — sometimes with the aid of swastika-emblazoned props. In the early going, the university provided him with police protection and said his visits to campus were protected by free speech laws.
But he also sought out students online and in-person whom he deemed to be “brainwashed” by anti-Zionist messaging. One such online campaign against a law student prompted the student to file an order of protection against Popivker last fall, an order supported by a prominent Jewish dean at the university. Popivker promptly violated the order by returning to campus.
Cleveland State University main campus, Cleveland, Ohio. (Getty Images)
In late January, university authorities had enough. They arrested Popivker and, following a hearing, declared him persona non grata on campus, banning him from the university grounds for at least two years. Popivker has also been banned from nearby Case Western Reserve University, where he had advocated before focusing on Cleveland State.
In the midst of a nationwide university climate in which pro-Israel advocates claim Jewish students face regular antisemitic harassment for their real or perceived Zionist beliefs, here was a documented case of the opposite: a Jew and outspoken Zionist, who has no affiliation with the schools at which he advocates, accused of harassing anyone he perceived as a threat to Israel, including students who had never sought him out directly.
The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has spoken out numerous times against Popivker and praised university police for arresting him; a petition the group backed, labeled “Stop harassment on campus” and mentioning Popivker by name, has garnered close to 700 signatures.
Jewish groups, including civil rights groups, have been less forthcoming about situation. Hillel International declined to comment for this story, and the directors of Cleveland’s regional American Jewish Committee and Jewish Community Relations Council offices did not return requests for comment. Jewish on Campus, a nationwide university antisemitism watchdog group that tracks what it defines as anti-Zionist social media harassment of Jewish students, also did not return a request for comment.
Jared Isaacson, the executive director of Cleveland Hillel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the center was “not very familiar with this story.” Cleveland Hillel coordinates Jewish student life at a consortium of Jewish universities including Cleveland State and Case Western, where its student center is located, as well as at least one other school where Popivker has made his presence on campus known in some form.
But, Isaacson said, “Cleveland Hillel is deeply committed to countering antisemitism and hate in all forms, and we believe that no student — Jewish or otherwise — should ever feel threatened or intimidated because of their identity.”
Popivker says he has support from the New York-based Lawfare Project, which bills itself as an “international pro-Israel litigation fund.” He told JTA that the organization “is watching over my cases and providing guidance.”
In a statement, the Lawfare Project called Popivker “a Jewish civil rights activist” but did not confirm that it is backing him, saying only that the group is “currently reviewing the matter.”
The group, which frequently files lawsuits on behalf of students who allege antisemitism on their campuses, said in a statement to JTA that the order of protection was a “double standard” that “should be alarming to anyone who cares about the fight against Jew-hatred.”
Lawfar recently settled a multi-year lawsuit with San Francisco State University over student reports of antisemitic harassment on campus stemming from anti-Zionist activists disrupting an event featuring the mayor of Jerusalem. The settlement compelled the university to hire a coordinator of Jewish student life.
Popivker will have his work cut out for him if he fights the charges. He had exhibited “behavior detrimental to the university community” by stealing the Palestinian banner and separately affixing an Israeli flag to university property, Matthew Kibbon, Cleveland State’s associate vice president of facility services, wrote in the university’s decision declaring him persona non grata.
The rabbi “was not banned for the content of his speech, but how he chose to exercise it,” a Cleveland State spokesperson told JTA in a statement. The university also provided JTA a list of recent campus police interactions with him, including the initial Jan. 11 report of the banner’s theft; Popivker’s visit to campus on Jan. 18, during which police advised him that the student’s order of protection did not permit him to be there; and his return visit on Jan. 25, during which he was arrested.
From Popivker’s perspective, he is simply speaking out on Israel’s behalf for a campus that has a large pro-Palestinian activist presence but few Jewish students. (There are fewer than 200 Jewish undergraduates on Cleveland State’s campus out of 11,784 students, according to Hillel International.) His goal is to educate, he says, informed by his status as a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union. And he believes he is being targeted by local pro-Palestinian activists, who, he said, have gone after his kippah and Israeli flags.
“I never attacked anyone. I never raised my hand up to anyone,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, saying that he was motivated by civil rights icons Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. “I’m going to a public university. I’m staying in the free speech zone. And I raise awareness about what’s going on. There’s a bunch of students that have become my friends that come to study with me regularly.”
One of those students, senior Tyler Jarosz, told JTA he became friends with Popivker after seeing him visiting campus to advocate for Israel. Not knowing much about Jews or Israel himself — “I thought Israel was a very peaceful state,” Jarosz said — the student was taken with Popivker’s demonstrations and said he learned a great deal from them.
“He didn’t just lecture me like a teacher would,” Jarosz said. “He was actually very engaging. He asked questions.”
Jarosz said he never witnessed the rabbi harassing anyone on campus, and said he always tried to engage people in peaceful dialogue, despite what he described as harassment directed at him by some Muslim students. He recalled one Popivker visit to campus for Israel’s independence day, when the rabbi was offering falafel to students, and said he witnessed one student throw the falafel back at him and threaten to “rape” him.
Other students tell a different story. One campus paper, the Cauldron, reported that the rabbi has targeted visibly Muslim and Arab students on campus, demanding to know their views on Israel. Popivker “makes me wary of coming into campus,” a student member of the Palestinian Human Rights Organization group told the Cauldron. “I’m forced to be on constant edge and take the longer way to class in order to avoid him.” Another student told a different campus newspaper, “It’s almost as though he deliberately looks for Palestinian individuals just to target them.”
The chair of the law school’s National Lawyers Guild student chapter told the Cleveland Jewish News that their group’s efforts to engage Popivker in reasonable dialogue failed when he began using “racial slurs and insulting language.”
A swastika Alexander Popivker drew on a Palestinian scarf (alleged by some students to be a keffiyeh, or ritual Muslim prayer scarf) while mounting a pro-Israel demonstration on the campus of Cleveland State University. Popivker then shared the image to his Instagram, Feb. 3, 2023. (Screenshot)
In images from one Popivker demonstration, the rabbi can be seen drawing a swastika with a Sharpie marker on what the Cauldron reported was a keffiyeh, a scarf worn by Arabic men, but which Popivker told JTA was a Palestinian scarf with no spiritual significance. He has also yelled phrases including “Palestinians are Nazis” and “Palestinians are the KKK,” and constructed a stage with images further linking Palestinians to Naziism, according to reports. Popivker’s own Instagram videos show him approaching groups of students to argue about Israel as he films them, calling some of them “terrorists” when they go after his flags. One of his video captions mentions “a Middle Eastern looking student.”
Cleveland State increased its safety protocols as a result of Popivker’s activities, locking some additional entrances around campus. But much of his activities have been online, too.
Last fall Popivker trained his attention on a law student who was involved with campus Palestinian rights groups and had made some anti-Israel posts online, including sharing an image of a child whom pro-Palestinian groups claimed had been a victim of an Israeli bombing, and sharing a socialist group’s post quoting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Documents show that Popivker emailed and called the student’s employer and law school seeking to have her disciplined for her beliefs, writing among other things that she was a “mouthpiece of terrorism and racism against Jews.” He also made Instagram posts targeting her. In response, the student filed for and received the order of protection against him, which Popivker later claimed was unwarranted because he had never met the student in person.
In its statement to JTA, the Lawfare Project homed in on this sequence of events, saying that Popivker’s decision to email the student’s school and employer about what he believed to be antisemitic social media posts was “a tool routinely used by civil rights activists to fight discrimination.”
Popivker asked Jarosz to send a letter attesting to his character for the order of protection hearing, which he did. “Alex understands and respects everyone of every background that he comes across,” the student wrote in his letter. “I have personally witnessed the demonization they have done of him.” Speaking to JTA weeks later, Jarosz said the court case was “bogus,” but said he was unaware of the emails, social media records and phone transcripts reviewed by JTA showing that Popivker had contacted the student’s employer and school.
At the order of protection hearing, a transcript of which Popivker sent to JTA, a key witness who advocated for the restriction was law school dean Lee Fisher, a former attorney general and lieutenant governor of Ohio. Fisher is Jewish.
“We share a hatred of antisemitism,” Fisher told Popivker during the hearing, according to the transcript. The dean also identified himself as “pro-Israel, very much so.” But Fisher made clear he was critical of Popivker’s activities on campus. Asked by Popivker about a specific social media post the student had made, Fisher responded, “Even if she made a mistake by posting it, it did not warrant the kind of reaction I believe that you had.”
Fisher had also met with Popivker previously, in a session mediated by a local rabbi who was a friend of Popivker. “I told him that I was concerned for the health and safety of our students,” the dean said during the hearing. He had implored Popivker to stop his campus activities, but the rabbi refused.
It’s the initial order of protection, which Popivker said had already effectively banned him from campus, that the rabbi says he truly opposes. He saw it as evidence that “they were basically working together with Palestinians” to “cover up the fact that they have an antisemitic group that openly propagates a destruction of Israel.” Popivker visited campus several times after receiving the order of protection but was permitted to stay with only a warning from campus police, Jarosz recalled.
This state of affairs lasted until the rabbi stole the Palestinian student group banner to, he said, “shine a light on this antisemitism.” Popivker described to JTA how he entered the student building, walked up to the third floor where he knew the banner was, and used scissors to remove it and take it with him: “Clip, clip, clip.” He was subsequently thrown in jail — his second such stint in Cleveland for pro-Israel activities, he said, criticizing local law enforcement for not providing him with kosher food while he was behind bars.
Outside of campus, Popivker is active in other areas. Last year, he organized a GoFundMe to support the family of a former classmate of his who was killed by an Islamic State supporter in a terrorist attack in Beersheba, Israel. He also applied to fill a January vacancy on the Cleveland Heights city council, but later withdrew his application.
After being barred from Cleveland State University, Rabbi Alex Popivker took to holding his anti-Palestinian protests on a street outside a local casino. (Courtesy Popivker)
While Popivker may preach nonviolence, his social media activity points to more radical ideologies, as well. On Instagram, he has shared an image of the flag of the Jewish Defense League, an extremist Jewish group that advocates violence against enemies of Jews, founded by convicted terrorist Rabbi Meir Kahane, as well as an image with a logo of Im Tirtzu, a right-wing Israeli group that has in the past been accused of inciting violence against Israeli human rights groups. Popivker told JTA he is not a member of either group, but that “if I think it’s aligned with what I believe in, I’ll share it.”
Popivker says that, for now, he’s done with his brand of “civil disobedience” and won’t be making his weekly visits to Cleveland State’s campus. “I do have five wonderful boys and a loving wife, and as much as Cuyahoga [County’s] jail is an educational experience in life in many ways, I do not want to go there every week,” he said.
Instead, days after his arrest and campus ban, Popivker posted a photo of himself with an Israeli flag to social media — this time outside a casino a mile away from campus.
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The post Rabbi arrested, banned from Cleveland universities over his anti-Palestinian activism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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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.”
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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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