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two views | Students deserve a Jewish space for truly diverse, open conversation
Extremist critics of Israel are all too common on today’s college campuses. They trace the world’s ills and troubles to one spot, one country and one people. Their vilification and rhetoric of boycott, elimination and destruction are echoed and amplified by easily manipulated student governments and by misinformed campus-funded cultural centers.
Self-styled experts with questionable academic qualifications spout hostile views at lectures and in the classroom. Countervailing viewpoints are not welcomed at seminars, conferences or workshops where Israel and the Middle East are discussed. It is often the case that only at one place around campus can programs presenting broader perspectives on Israel occasionally be found. That place is the local Hillel.
Hillel is an international organization that promotes connections to Judaism for college students at more than 500 campuses across the world. As a former president of a wonderful Hillel at U.C. Davis, I can attest to the important role that Hillel can play for students in a difficult and increasingly hostile college environment.
Recently a small group of students at several East Coast colleges has issued demands that Hillel cosponsor events with anti-Semitic and Israel-hating organizations. They have now been joined in this divisive request by a collection of faculty calling themselves the “Open Hillel Academic Council” (“Top academics join call for Hillel to open up on Israel,” Jan. 15, www.jweekly.com/article/full/76626).
The list of faculty in this council reveals a particular irony. A generally one-sided and hostile perspective on Israel dominates the seminars, conferences and classes of the departments in which they work. In these programs it would be futile to search for openness to a range of viewpoints or opinions. One would be hard-pressed to find an event they hosted that reflects positively on Israel.
Those calling on Hillel to change might first look at their own surroundings. As fish do not see the water in which they swim, so they fail to see the intolerant conformity regarding Israel that envelops their academic environment. Should not “openness” begin at home?
In contrast to this narrow-mindedness, Hillel hosts events representing a wide range of views from across the political spectrum. Along with Shabbat services and weekday lunches, students and visitors to a Hillel find all kinds of programs and speakers, open to all. Critics of Israel can ask challenging questions and offer their thoughts, and they often do.
But for some, this is not enough. Hillel, they demand, must embrace and validate their personal political views. It must, they say, host and fund programs organized by groups that demonize Israel and call for its destruction.
It is highly misleading to cast this as a request for an “Open Hillel.” Hillel is open already. To participate in Hillel programs requires no partisan screens, and no religious or political litmus tests.
The central issue at play is something very different. It is whether Hillel should be forced to host and fund and cooperate with and provide a platform for groups that oppose its core values.
To recognize the inanity of such demands, imagine a similar “Open Democrats” group, which calls for the Democratic Party to cosponsor Donald Trump rallies. Or an “Open Giants” group that claims the right to play soccer in AT&T Park every other week during the second inning. Or perhaps an “Open Greenpeace” group demanding that Greenpeace cosponsor lectures denying human-caused climate change. Is declining such absurd requests equivalent to demanding loyalty oaths?
A serious principle is under attack. Hillel is a private organization, whose duties and obligations are essentially different from those of publicly funded universities and their campus programs. A fundamental strength of U.S. society is that ideas can be examined through vigorous debate. Free speech is one aspect of open debate. No less important is a second right, the freedom of association. This is the right to form or to join a group as one chooses, and to act together with others to pursue the interests of that group as its members decide.
Freedom of association is vital when effective exercise of speech requires working with others in pursuit of common goals. Along with the U.S. Constitution, it is also recognized as a basic right in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A demand that Hillel host programs in conflict with its mission is an assault on both freedom of association and freedom of speech.
I would like to believe that the supporters of “Open Hillel” are well meaning, if misguided. I therefore suggest that they look for a cause worthy of high moral aspirations. On today’s college campuses there is indeed an organization that deserves to be challenged, that is closed to all but a narrow set of noxious views.
This group blatantly opposes open dialogue and explicitly calls for academic boycotts and sanctions. Among its followers are those who advocate censorship, the shouting down of opponents, heckling and disruption. It is antithetical to Jewish values and academic freedom, and it is active at numerous universities.
It calls itself BDS.
Joel Hass is a professor of mathematics at U.C. Davis. He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.