A few years back, Rabbi Hanan Alexander and his family of five left sunny California for even sunnier Haifa. And while the University of Haifa professor doesn’t expect every Californian to make the same decision he did, he doesn’t expect them to be coerced into leaving Israel either.
Except, he says, that is exactly what has happened.
University systems such as the University of California and the California State University “did not take a careful and close view of what was going on on the ground, what the nature of danger to their students is,” said Alexander, a Berkeley native who now heads the University of Haifa’s overseas program and Jewish education center.
The professor, who is also a Conservative rabbi, returns to his hometown on Monday to discuss his most recent book, “Reclaiming Goodness: Education and the Spiritual Quest” at Black Oak Books.
“If you look at the statistics about crimes committed on American college campuses which the Chronicle of Higher Education publishes yearly, there’s more crime on American college campuses any year, even during the course of the intifada. The danger here is simply not the danger many college personnel believe it to be.”
While both the U.C. and Cal State systems have recalled their students from Israeli overseas programs, Alexander saves his harshest criticism for the U.C., which he says coerced and pressured students into a hasty decision, and dropped numerous roadblocks in the path of anyone who might wish to remain in Israel.
“The U.C. has made it extraordinarily disadvantageous to remain. That’s not fair, and it’s not something the CSU system is doing,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Israel.
Any U.C. student wishing to remain in Israel was required to drop out of the system’s Education Abroad Program, which, in effect, is the same as dropping out of school altogether. The student then must formally enroll at the Israeli institution where he or she was studying.
Then, upon returning to the United States, the student will be required to re-enroll at their U.C. campus, and is not guaranteed admittance. If the student is admitted, it will be the student’s responsibility to ensure that the Israeli credits are properly transferred over.
The U.C. “pressured them to make immediate decisions, intimidated them by telling them they were unsafe and would have difficulty completing their academic programs” if they remained in Israel, said Alexander. “The CSU system took more time to make its decision, consulted more widely and communicated with students and us [university staff] to allow them to make their own decisions.”
Fleeing in the face of danger, Alexander believes, rewards a clear victory to terrorists.
“And they understand these victories. They commemorate their victory how? By attacking again,” he said. “I believe that Jewish community leaders in the state assembly or those involved in the Cal State or U.C. systems should raise their voices and vigorously insist on the need to examine the facts on the ground. Pulling out in the way they did gave a victory to terror.”
Alexander has observed from afar the increasingly vitriolic Palestinian-Israeli debate on the U.C. Berkeley campus and surrounding community. He believes many of the demonstrators to be anti-Semitic, referring to talk that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism” as “the game people play.”
“Those who care about the Jewish people, the future of the Jewish people and the state of Israel have to be very clear. Terrorism is terrorism. Terrorism on 9/11 is the same as terrorism in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Haifa. There’s no difference if the victims are Jews, Israelis or Americans.”
The professor believes the deadly Passover massacre in Israel and increasing instances of the Arab media running blood libel stories are not unrelated. He further maintains that reports of Israeli atrocities in the West Bank incursion are playing upon the reputed “bloodthirstiness” of the Jews.
“You can’t hate Israel and not also hate the Jews,” he said. “The reverse is also true. If you hate Jews, you hate Israel.”