A Jewish advocacy group is warning students about 218 Middle East studies professors in colleges and universities across the country whose classes might contain “anti-Israel bias, or possibly even anti-Semitic rhetoric.”
The Amcha Initiative singled out the professors because, during the conflict between Israel and Hamas this summer, they signed a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel.
“We believe the professors who have signed this petition may be so biased against the Jewish state that they are unable to teach accurately or fairly about Israel or the Arab-Israel conflict, and may even inject anti-Semitic tropes into their lectures or class discussion,” wrote the co-founders of the Amcha Initiative, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and Leila Beckwith.
Now, 40 of America’s leading Jewish studies professors have signed a statement calling Amcha’s actions “deplorable” and a threat to academic freedom. Robert Alter of U.C. Berkeley is one of 11 Bay Area professors who signed the statement, which said in part, “We find it regrettable that Amcha, so intent on combating the boycott of Israel, has launched a boycott initiative of its own.”
Other local signatories include David Biale and Diane Wolf of U.C. Davis; Nathaniel Deutsch of U.C. Santa Cruz; John Efron of U.C. Berkeley; Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Ari Y. Kelman, Aron Rodrigue and Sam Wineburg of Stanford; and Naomi Seidman of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. The statement was co-authored by Steven Zipperstein of Stanford University.
Read more here:http://forward.com/articles/206628/jewish-professors-hit-back-against-pro-israel-camp/