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Amcha provides needed service

The Amcha Initiative is an organization dedicated to investigating, documenting, educating about and combating anti-Semitism at colleges and universities. As such, it performs an essential service for Jewish students who are often attacked and/or intimidated.

Recently, Amcha has identified professors of Middle East studies who signed a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel.  It is entirely reasonable to assume that such professors harbor anti-Israel and/or anti-Semitic prejudices.

In response, a number of those identified professors are calling Amcha’s action deplorable and a threat to academic freedom (“Jewish studies professors: Warning of anti-Israel bias is ‘deplorable,’” Oct. 3). Can this group of anti-Israel professors really be so hypocritical?

To call for a boycott of Israeli professors is surely an abridgment of academic freedom. To report on which professors are calling for a boycott, as Amcha did on Sept. 3, is simply a statement of fact, an important piece of information for those students and their parents deciding on colleges to which they will apply.

We have recently seen a rise in hateful anti-Semitism all across Europe. Fortunately, this has not yet come to America, with the notable exception of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activity on college campuses. To attempt to intimidate pro-Israel and Jewish students is what is truly deplorable.

Dr. Lawrence D. White   |   San Francisco

 

Dangerously wacky professors

The Amcha Initiative warned students of the possible bias of professors, because “during the conflict between Israel and Hamas this past summer, they signed a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel.” Next, 40 of America’s leading Jewish studies professors signed a statement calling Amcha’s actions “deplorable” and a threat to academic freedom.

Excuse me. What thinking, logical person would not call signing “a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel” a form of shutting down free speech and a threat to academic freedom? Hopefully the students in their classes are smarter than these dangerously wacky professors.

Thank you to Amcha for pointing out the truth!

Sheree Roth   |   Palo Alto

 

Let’s spell it ‘antisemite’

In the Oct. 3 issue of J., a headline reads “Port protests more anti-Semitic than ‘anti-Zimitic.’”

I maintain that the spelling should be changed, and there are many who agree for the following reason:

The term “anti-Semite” was coined by German Jew-haters in the late 19th century. Basing their argument on work by linguists, they claimed that there were two large divisions of the “white race,” Aryans and Semites, and that the two were destined never to mingle. They were the Aryans, of course, Jews were the Semites, and they, the Jew-haters, were “anti-Semites.” Aside from the extensive evidence from biological anthropology that the Jewish people of our time are descended from a variety of ethnic types, the claim was racist in theory and intention.

The term is so rooted in our language that eliminating it entirely seems impossible. By using “antisemitism” rather than “anti-Semitism,” one takes a step toward rejection of the racist language — saying in effect, well, if we must use this antiquated word, let’s at least drop the outdated spelling suggesting that there are Aryans and Semites, never to connect.

Mark D. Reiss   |   San Francisco

 

El Al, just say ‘no’ to haredim

I am outraged that the national airline of Israel is even considering a plan to cater to the blatant sexism of the haredi on their flights (“El Al faces uproar over haredi refusal to sit near women,” Oct. 3).

This group, which has a complete stranglehold on all Jewish religious practice in Israel and thinks it is justified to discriminate against their fellow Jews who practice a different form of Judaism, now wants to take their bigotry international.

Though obviously of more benign effect, theirs is the same kind of social pathology that motivates ISIS and other religious extremists.

My suggested solution is to firmly affirm that all passengers on El Al will be seated and served in a nondiscriminatory manner, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can stay home in their very insular, provincial communities.

Jonathan Feinberg   |   San Mateo