For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism

JVL Introduction

Coming from the former Executive Director of Harvard Hillel, at the centre of Jewish life on campus at Harvard University for almost two decades, Bernie Steinberg’s opinion matters.

He pulls no punches in this contribution to a Harvard Crimson symposium, feeling he has to speak out against the “cynical weaponization of antisemitism “ on campus, “today’s McCarthyist tactic of manufacturing an antisemitism scare, which, in effect, turns the very real issue of Jewish safety into a pawn in a cynical political game to cover for Israel’s deeply unpopular policies with regard to Palestine.”

And he is not afraid to point to how very rich donors, non-Jewish and Jewish alike, are targeting vulnerable groups, especially, Palestinian activists.

People have been expelled from Starmer’s Labour Party for saying much, much less, victims of the same cynical manipulation of antisemitism allegations.

It is heartening to see this resistance coming from the heart of the Jewish world in the States.

(Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, also known as Hillel International, organises thousands of college students across the world with more than 850 colleges and communities belonging to it across North America. In principal committed to “enriching the lives of Jewish students”, it has generally been staunchly pro-Zionist and strongly opposed to BDS.)

RK

This article was originally published by the Harvard Crimson on Fri 29 Dec 2023. Read the original here.